Episode Details

This episode starts with dreaming and ends with dreaming - and in between, Luke Bateman takes us through everything that happens when you stop letting yourself do it.

Luke played professional rugby league for the Canberra Raiders - 71 first-grade games, thousands of hours of training camps and hotel rooms and locker rooms - and in almost all of that time, he kept his love of fantasy fiction completely hidden. The shame of it, he says, was shaped by a very specific idea of what it meant to be a man. And unpacking that idea has been the work of the last several years.

His whole life, it turns out, has been a dreamer's journey. He just had to go through a lot to get back to it.

We explore:

• The specific culture of professional rugby league and what it meant for his sense of self, his gambling addiction, and his mental health
• The inner child and parts work that was central to his recovery - including making peace with the version of himself he'd been most ashamed of
• What it means to call men in, rather than calling them out
• The men who went silent during his crisis, and what that silence told him about being a man.
• His two favourite books - and the one that brought him home to himself after rehab

[Recorded Online April 2026]

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About Luke Bateman:

Luke Bateman grew up in Miles, western Queensland, where rugby league was the dominant culture. He played 71 NRL first-grade games as a lock for the Canberra Raiders before a chronic knee injury ended his career at 24. After leaving the game, he returned to rural Queensland, began posting book reviews to TikTok from a tractor in 2025, and within months had signed a two-book fantasy series deal with Atria Books Australia (Simon & Schuster). He now hosts his own podcast, In the Good Books, appeared on I'm A Celebrity Australia in early 2026, and is writing his debut fantasy novel, due in 2027.

Connect with Luke:

• Instagram: @lukebateman_
• TikTok: @lukesreads
• Podcast: In the Good Books on Spotify and on Apple Podcasts

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