Show Notes
Happy Pride! While Pride shouldn’t just be confined to a month, one of our audio producers described this time of year as “ ... a breath let go that you didn't know you were holding.” This episode is for everyone, but especially for those who have been waiting to exhale and looking forward to living every day with pride. It's about resistance and being seen in a time when queer and trans communities are being targeted. Our two stories this week come from the Queer Stories podcast. They were performed and recorded on the 8th of September, 2025, on Arrente land as part of the Northern Territory Writers Festival. Special thanks to Queer Stories, Maeve Marsden, Northern Territory Writers Festival, and 8CCC Radio.
Patooki by Winnie Dunn Award-winning writer and first-ever published Tongan-Australian writer Winnie Dunn performs a story that traces the history of some other remarkable firsts for Tongan women in her family. Winnie Dunn is the winner of the Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist Award 2025 and the Kathleen Mitchell Award 2025 for her debut novel, Dirt Poor Islanders by Winnie Dunn. Written and performed by Winnie Dunn
Shrewdly Innocent by Daniel Browning Daniel Browning is a Bundjalung and Kullilli award-winning writer, journalist, and broadcaster. Daniel muses on all of these things, being First Nations and queer, as well as struggling with a complex medical diagnosis. Written and performed by Daniel Browning These pieces were performed and recorded on 8 September 2025 in Mbantua, Alice Springs, on Arrente land as part of the Northern Territory Writers Festival. Special thanks to Queerstories, Maeve Marsden, Northern Territory Writers’ Festival, and 8CCC Radio. You can find out more about Queer Stories at maevemarsden.com/queerstories Looking for more queer stories? Then check this episode out!
All The Best Credits Host: Gabriella Accaria Executive Producer: Melanie Bakewell Programming & Community Coordinator: Catarina Fraga Matos Production Manager: Kwame Slusher Digital Trainee: Imogen Brosnan Mixed & Compiled: Emma Higgins Theme Music composed by Shining Bird Special shout-out to all our volunteers
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More from All The Best
"...as an act of justice doing and expressing how much I care for them, and I guess also the sacredness of all life in witnessing and experiencing multiple genocides and affrontations of, like, what's happening on these lands I think navigating grief as an act of love maybe gave me a sense of autonomy and being able to move through with a, with a bit more grace and not letting it subsume me all of the time." - Shareeka Helaluddin
There is this Tolstoy quote from Anna Karenina, "All Happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I've always struggled with this binary. This idea of happiness or unhappiness as somehow being fixed states. No nuance. I think real families, ones outside Russian fiction, exist on a more complex spectrum.
This week we are featuring our first story from our Jesse Cox Audio Fellowship 2026! More than 15 Years ago, Jesse Cox co-developed an incredible audio narrative program on fbi.radio called All The Best. JCAF is an audio mentorship program, pretty one-of-a-kind, championing the kind of work and spirit our show's co-founder upheld and honouring his legacy.
Sooooo ... the best way to think of this episode is a bit like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. But instead of there being a bereaved scientist obsessed with resurrection, we have a monster of a story stuck together from different audio body parts made by audio makers from all over the world. Our Programming and Community Coordinator Catarina Fraga Matos breaks down the way the audio corpse works: