Remember the book The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck? For me, it was life changing. It taught me not to sweat the small stuff and while it’s still a work in progress and I think it always will be – it’s impossible to float through life without getting your feathers ruffled - her wisdom has stayed with me. Today’s guest is one of my favourite best-selling authors – her name is Sarah Knight. If you’re opposed to swearing, this might not be an episode for you. Her book titles range...

Today’s guest is Sarah Salmon. She’s an Australian writer who lived in Asia for fifteen years, during which time she and her husband adopted two children – two girls – from Cambodia. Her memoir is entitled The Red Thread and it chronicles her struggle to complete her family while living in India. A psychic once told Sarah that she’d have ‘a dark-skinned child, not by the man you marry.’ Adoption was always going to be her path. In today’s episode, we talk a lot about the adoption process –...

Now when my friend Reese Witherspoon describes a book as “Magnificent!” I pay attention. Ok obviously Reese is not my friend, but I wish she was because she has great taste in books. The book she’s talking about is called Find Your Unicorn Space and while I don’t have Reese on this podcast (yet!) I do have the brilliant author of this brilliant book Eve Rodsky.   Eve argues that creativity is not optional – and as someone who is a true creative at heart and spends most of my life trying to...

Welcome back to The Grace Tales podcast. I’m your host, author and editor Georgie Abay. If you’ve been following over the last few weeks, you’ll know I’m running a mini-series with founders of SMES. Because whether you’ve launched your own business, or have a dream bubbling away in the back of your mind, I know how much hearing other people’s experience has helped me personally. Because launching a business – especially if you’re doing it solo – can feel lonely at times. But you’re not alone...

Welcome back to The Grace Tales podcast. I’m your host, author, editor and the founder of The Grace Tales Georgie Abay.   As you heard last week, I’ve kicked off a special mini-series where I’m interviewing female small and medium-sized enterprise founders. If you’re interested in maybe one day launching your own SME, or you’re already there and you want to hear how others do it, think of this series as your support and your inspiration. Today’s guest will certainly inspire you.  I have...

Welcome back to The Grace Tales podcast. I’m your host, author, editor and the founder of The Grace Tales Georgie Abay. Today I’m kicking off a special mini-series where I’ll be interviewing female small and medium-sized enterprise founders. As someone who 10 years ago, left her dream job to launch a small business, how to start an SME is something I love talking about. Mostly because it’s really, really hard. But like all hard things, it’s worth it. And to take the leap, we need support. So...

Welcome back to The Grace Tales podcast. I’m your host Georgie Abay. I’m the founder of The Grace Tales, a mum, an editor, author and entrepreneur. Today you’re going to meet Emma Carey, who is the girl who fell from the sky. And when she says she fell from the sky, she means it quite literally. It’s the name of her new memoir, which takes us through what happened when she jumped out of a plane when she was just 20-years-old and her parachute didn’t open.    The day of the accident, Emma...

Today’s episode is one that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’m speaking to the very fabulous Pip Brett, the founder of much-loved homewares and fashion store Jumbled which is based in Orange, NSW. For those of you who haven’t experienced the word of Jumbled, it’s a colourful haven, bursting with inspiration and pure joy.   Pip really is the most inspiring entrepreneur. She started her business in her early 20s, and has been running it for over 16 years. And while Jumbled is certainly the...

Welcome back to The Grace Tales podcast. It’s been a while since I said hello, and I took a long break from recording. Mostly, because life got hectic, and I needed a break. I’ve never actually been good at knowing when to take a break. I’ll usually try and push through. But at the end of last year, I hit a wall. I needed to take some things off my plate. So I did, and this podcast was one of them. The break felt good, and I used it to finish a rather huge project I’ll be able to talk about...

Welcome to the third instalment of our In Her Shoes series, in partnership with the iconic Australian footwear brand Wittner. This exciting new series gives us the rare opportunity to step into the lives of the women who inspire us and discover the strength, courage and ingenuity that has got them to where they are today...  So, let’s meet the fabulous Rey Vakili. It’s hard to know where to start with Rey. You could credit her success to the fact that her parents taught her the importance of...

Nikki Gemmell’s latest book Dissolve has been described as the book every woman on earth should read. But if you don’t have the time, you can start with this podcast. In today’s episode with Nikki we talk about some of the big moments in her life, from having to give evidence in court at age 10 during her parents divorce, to having her engagement broken off and becoming the wildly successful author of 13 novels. We talk about love, heartbreak, and creativity, and why she does so much of what...

Almost exactly a year ago, Allira Potter was working a corporate job, she felt burnt out and she knew she wasn’t living her purpose. 12 months on, she works for herself, she has built an incredible online following, she’s earning six figures, she’s working with major brands like The Body Shop, and she’s just announced a book entitled Wild & Witchy - so by all accounts, it’s fair to say she’s feeling much more aligned to her purpose. How did this happen? We’re going to find out...

Have you heard the joke about how ‘next pregnancy, I want to be the dad’? Or perhaps you’ve laughed about needing an extra set of hands, or warned a pregnant friend to ‘sleep now, because it’s the last chance you’ll get’. It’s no secret that motherhood changes you forever, exhausts you, pushes you to your limits, and is often referred to as the hardest (but best) thing you’ll ever do. But if any of this sounds familiar, then you MUST listen to today’s episode of the podcast with Amy...

Power Play by Julia Banks delves into the toxic workplace culture in Parliament House – and now is the time to read it. But before you do, listen to this episode.   In today’s conversation, hosted by our managing editor Gemma Dawkins, you’ll hear how Julia was verbally abused and told she was a “pighead,” by a male Liberal staffer inside her own home. Her son was upstairs studying at the time. She was also told to “stop acting like a f*****g CEO”.   How did she react in these toxic...

Bri Lee is a phenomenal woman. She’s an author and freelance writer. Her first book, Eggshell Skull, won Biography of the Year at the ABIA Awards, the People's Choice Award at the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, and was longlisted for the 2019 Stella Prize. She is also a non-practicing lawyer and continues to engage in legal research and issues-based advocacy.  Today, I’m talking to Bri about her latest book, entitled Who Gets to Be Smart – a look at the role privilege, power and...

Today’s guest is the extraordinary Anjilla Seddeqi, a former lawyer turned fashion designer and mother. She was born in Kabul, and moved to Australia with her family. She studied law, and then went to work as a legal representative for asylum seekers. She started a couture line on the side which focused on modest dressing, as a distraction from her work as lawyer. Today, we will talk about her time spent with asylum seekers and also how it feels to be an Afghan woman, watching the horror...

When Wittner CEO Catherine Williamson set herself the goal of becoming CEO by 35, she wasn’t counting on giving birth to twin girls shortly after her 34th birthday. Despite the vision board she’d created around that particular milestone, she accepted that it wasn’t going to happen. Or not on schedule, at least. But manifestation is powerful, she says. And get there she did – at 35 years old. It had been a long road to CEO, with Williamson starting out at Wittner as a casual employee...

Before I begin today’s episode, I just want to send my love to everyone in lockdown. I’m recording this on a Friday, after a week of trying to work while home-school my kids. It’s not fun and all I can say is, there’s sunshine ahead. We just need to wait. And be patient- something which doesn’t come that easily to me!   Now, over the last few weeks, in lockdown, something that keeps coming up in the conversations I’m having is the mental health of teens right now. Which is why today’s...

Currently, 3.2 million Australians live below the poverty line and more than half of those people are women and young girls. Being able to afford sanitary products is a basic necessity – but sadly one that not everyone can afford. Period poverty is something we can’t ignore.   Which is why this week, we’re stepping into the shoes of two exceptional women – the Young Australian Of The Year 2021 Isobel Marshall and her best friend and business partner Eloise Hall. Together, they...

Viral video producer Briony Benjamin was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 31. Her debut book Life Is Tough (But So Are You) How to rise to the challenge when things go pear-shaped couldn’t have arrived at a more appropriate time. And I hope today’s conversation is a great comfort to our listeners, no matter what you’re going through. Because as we talk about today, you never know what is going on behind closed doors.   Briony was a few months into a new job when she started...

Becoming a mother is supposed to be a joyous time. But when Amani was 5 months pregnant with her first child, she was plunged into grief when her father murdered her mother in a brutal act of domestic violence. As she tried to piece her life back together, Amani began pulling at the threads of her story, searching for answers. How had this happened? Where was the justice? Where did her maternal grandmother’s death, in a fatal airstrike in Lebanon only a decade prior, fit into the story? And...

On The Grace Tales, we explore the ups and downs of motherhood – sleepless nights, toddler tantrums, teenage angst, but what happens when you’re raising kids alone? When you’re the only adult in the house. As a child of divorced parents, I’ve seen it from the perspective of a child. But what’s it like from the mother’s perspective? Today’s guest is Journalist Jacinta Tynan, who has just published her new book ‘The Single Mother's Social Club - Inspiration and advice on embracing single...

Read Clem Bastow’s new non-fiction book Late Bloomer and it will change the way you think about autism.  Clem grew up feeling like she’d missed a key memo on human behaviour. She found the unspoken rules of social engagement confusing, arbitrary and often stressful. Friendships were hard, relationships harder, and the office was a fluorescent-lit nightmare of anxiety. It wasn’t until Clem was diagnosed as autistic, at age 36, that things clicked into focus.  The obsession with sparkly...

I’m so excited to introduce you to today’s guest, who I first interviewed for the grace tales over 5 years ago when she was travelling around Australia on holidays. It was on that trip that she decided Byron Bay was where she wanted to call home and not long after, she began the process of making the move to Australia a permanent one.   If you’re one of Courtney Adamo’s 276K followers on Instagram, you’ll know she became a “parenting influencer” long before anyone had even heard of the term....