Nikki Gemmell | Author at The Australian

Hats off to rodeo dreamers

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWhat is it about Australian distance that brews such world-dominating dreamers?

I’m embarrassed for my land

0:00 AMNikki GemmellOn a beautiful day our skies are harangued by ‘VOTE NO’ writ large. How do I explain this torturous mess?

Hello darkness, my old friend

0:00 AMNikki GemmellI go to sleep wearing an eye mask. There’s too much light leaking into the velvety dark and it doesn’t feel healthy.

Oh, the humiliation

0:00 AMNikki GemmellExtreme embarrassment. We’ve all been there. Like the time in England when I thought I’d made it, only to be set straight at a writers’ event.

Caught in a laziness scourge

0:00 AMNikki GemmellI’ve lost a lot of weight. An open fire and an old, cold courthouse was the wake-up call I needed.

Skippy, come home?

0:00 AMNikki GemmellAustralians have been urged to help conserve native species by keeping them as pets. Are we up for it?

Scents that sing us home

0:00 AMNikki GemmellAh, breathe them in: they’re the smells that hold the promise of an eternal Aussie summer.

Unfairness laid bare

0:00 AMNikki GemmellI’m all for revealing the salaries of the ABC’s top talent — if it leads to action on pay equality.

The power of vulnerability

0:00 AMNikki GemmellAdmitting vulnerability is not weak but brave.

Oh, to be disconnected

0:00 AMNikki GemmellI have a great nostalgia for the time before the smartphone invasion.

Rites of passage

0:00 AMNikki GemmellMakeshift roadside memorials are a reminder to slow down and smell the roses.

The can-do country

0:00 AMNikki GemmellAustralia is giving my father Bob a chance. At 82.

All downhill from here

0:00 AMNikki GemmellI lost every child I owned on the toboggan run.

Birds in a gilded cage

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWe want the bubble of enchantment to stay unpricked.

The GIF that keeps on giving

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWho needs parties? I’d rather stay home and infiltrate my teenage boys’ phones with embarrassing messages.

The Indian summer of love

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWhether or not to act on the impulse is the question.

The female flaw

Mia Freedman, a feminist blogger and former editor of several top-selling women's magazine, who is against the rise of sexualisation of children.

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWhy do women attack each other with such self-righteous fury?

Lives of quiet desperation

0:00 AMNikki GemmellThe stigma and stress of redundancy is crushing for some men.

Delusion of the full-time job

0:00 AMNikki GemmellIncreasing numbers of middle-aged men are being made redundant, which can lead to depression and suicide.

Wow, what a gal

0:00 AMNikki GemmellRight now, it feels as if we need Wonder Woman.

Wow, what a gal

0:00 AMNikki GemmellRight now, it feels as if we need Wonder Woman.

The waiting room

0:00 AMNikki GemmellPublic sentiment is galloping ahead of doctors in the voluntary euthanasia debate.

The waiting room

0:00 AMNikki GemmellPublic sentiment is galloping ahead of doctors in the voluntary euthanasia debate.

‘The vacuum of humanity’

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWe do not need gambling increasingly normalised in this country. The industry stinks and everyone knows it.

The shame of gaming

0:00 AMNikki GemmellThe industry stinks and everyone knows it.

Let us sprawl, rejoice

0:00 AMNikki GemmellPeople who embody the secret know how to live.

Let us sprawl, rejoice

0:00 AMNikki GemmellPeople who embody the secret know how to live.

A crime we need to talk about

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWhere was the sense of morality, of compassion?

A crime we need to talk about

0:00 AMNikki GemmellWhere was the sense of morality, of compassion?

Mother’s way

0:00 AMNikki GemmellMy mother and I were broken by a desire for perfection.