Sarah Price

A refugee who worked with the Australians during the war in Afghanistan waits in detention as some of his family are killed by the Taliban and others are at increasing risk.

At 62, three-time Olympic gold medallist Andrew Hoy is in Tokyo for his eighth Games – the most of any Australian athlete in history.

During the pandemic, immigration detention centres have become more crowded. Despite many guards living in Covid-19 hotspots, there are no extra precautions for asylum seekers, no distancing and no access to vaccines. Advocates warn of a superspreading event if the virus gets in.

He was a small man with a huge heart and left an indelible mark on the games of rugby league and rugby union. Arthur Summons was also one half of the famous “Gladiators” image. “I didn’t really do anything to make it happen. Just tripped over in the mud, had a photo taken and became famous.”

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.

The immersive works of multimedia artist Saskia Boddeke reflect her belief in the need for deep, emotional engagement in art. It was a passion shared by Matisse’s Russian patron Sergey Shchukin, the subject of Boddeke’s film installation in the Masters of modern art from the Hermitage exhibition. “Art is an absolute necessity; it is a universal thing we share. All over the world, we express ourselves in painting, in music, in speaking, in putting words in an order that touch your heart. That is how we recognise things. Art makes us civil. Art makes us look – not only at paintings, but at other people. It shows us the beauty in difference.”

A drink in a Glebe pub with ex-President of Kiribati and Nobel Peace prize nominee, Anote Tong.

The writer of Memoirs of a Suburban Girl on her long road out of a violent relationship. “There I am, right in the middle of my teenage years and suddenly in a serious relationship. A relationship that pushes away my other life. Being hit was beyond my world experience. I didn’t want it to happen again. I started treading a little bit more carefully, and that set up a power dynamic.”

Production designer Deborah Riley on building the world of Westeros.

A coffee in Redfern with the young-adult writer.

The work of Chinese artist Sun Xun explores concepts of time and space, truth and lies – always searching for answers. As the first solo exhibition of his work in Australia opens at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, he talks about the role of the artist. “We live in a lie, in a big lie system. People should jump out from the lie circle and touch the world. It is the modern world’s problem. Where is the truth? I don’t know. In my art, I want to make people think: ‘Don’t believe our world – it is a big lie.’ I am trying to open the door for people.”

How a doctor forced to flee the Democratic Republic of the Congo is making a new life in Sydney.

Gabriel Tallent, writer of My Absolute Darling, discusses inspiration and motivation.

A visit to the Sydney studio of artist Wendy Sharpe.

A conversation with the artistic director of the Sydney Writers’ Festival, Michaela McGuire.

For the 21st Biennale of Sydney, artist Ciara Phillips is creating a collaborative printmaking studio, posters from which will run each week in The Saturday Paper. She talks about the role of art in social change. “I find it really difficult to explain: how do you make art? Basically it’s the sum total of all the things I think about.”

A seat at the desk of academic, poet and author Debra Adelaide.

“Since he first started travelling to Utopia, Tim Jennings has been collecting paintings by various artists. His gallery, Mbantua, now has a permanent collection: 30 years’ worth of art from Utopia. ‘I thought it could be very important to see how …”

Well known for playing some of Shakespeare’s most flawed characters on stage and screen, Kenneth Branagh is now searching for the emotional truth behind a famous detective. Here, he talks about embodying and directing Poirot. “I was incredibly concentrated in both ways: as Poirot I was listening and looking for the lie, and as director, I was in a way, listening and looking for the lie. Both things operated at the same time.”

A walk through the Northern Territory’s wilderness with Danny.

Home cooking in Sydney’s diverse communities, with Food Safari Earth’s Maeve O’Meara.

Talking to the author of Looking for Alibrandi at the St Albans Writers’ Festival.

Writing about pain relief brought Kate Cole-Adams face to face with the big philosophical questions.

Street photographer Jonny Lewis is documenting and preserving local and global communities.

Marija Peričić in her first flush of fame.

When no studio wanted to touch Fight Club, producer Ross Grayson Bell fought hard to get the film green-lighted. Now, he’s back home in Australia and pulling no punches with budding storytellers.

Sarah Goffman on finding art among other people’s rubbish.

“We meet at his apartment block in Manly, from where he can hear the sea. It’s early evening, and the light is softened by a dense, salty haze. Restaurants and cafes on the street front are beginning to fill, the surf slowly emptying of people. Norfolk …”

A visit to writer and activist Eva Cox's house.

Free-diver Kathryn Heyman, author of Storm and Grace.

Redfern Wiradjuri woman Donna Ingram

Pakistani filmmaker and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on devoting her life to exposing violence against women.

Small Acts of Disappearance author Fiona Wright on the strange relationship between hunger and writing.

A hug and a chat with the woman taking her message of love to the masses.

A tour of Sydney’s Asylum Seeker Centre.

Lunch at a busy cafe with Alison Bell.

Robin Hemley explains the fiction of all writing.

Sarah Price pulls up a pew with Graham Long of Sydney’s Wayside Chapel

Phil Glendinning steps off the pub stage to chat about tracking down Australia’s refouled refugees.

Shedding light on the darkness that informs Charlotte Wood’s latest work.

Every day he calls his mother in Afghanistan, just to see if his family is still alive.

The writing mentor finally finds time to write.

A 150-novels-a-year man.

Twenty years ago they were young and carefree. Now one is dead and the country stunned by his actions.