Jess Hill’s incisive examination of domestic violence saw the journalist win the coveted Stella Prize last month. But the four-year project also took an immense personal toll. “All that advice about self-care … I didn’t do any of it. I almost pointedly didn’t do it. I thought: ‘You need to feel, even just one iota of the pain and suffering the people you are talking to are feeling.’ If I was feeling really relaxed and detached from it, I wouldn’t be able to write about it in the way I wanted to … I sort of had to inhabit it.”

After leading the NSW Rural Fire Service through the summer’s bushfire crisis, Shane Fitzsimmons has now taken up a new challenge – how the state will recover from Covid-19.

A walk through Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons.

Watching and listening to the artistic director of the Australian Brandenberg Orchestra, Paul Dyer.

A visit to the studio of nonagenarian artist Guy Warren.

Talking process with Sydney Theatre Company’s resident director Jessica Arthur.

A tour through the headquarters of food distributor OzHarvest with CEO Ronni Kahn.

A chat with Australian Writers’ Centre founder, visual artist and curator of the 2019 City of Sydney Lunar Festival Valerie Khoo.

Lunch with Scott Rankin, the creative director of the arts and social change organisation, Big hART.