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During Connie Johnson's very public battle with cancer, her brother Sam was by her side spreading the word about the Love Your Sister campaign.  But there were many more people behind the scenes supporting Connie and building the incredible charity that is Love Your Sister.  Sam invited Mia to Canberra on the day before Connie's funeral, to meet some of the women who were closest to Conn...

It's been a little over a week since Connie Johnson died of cancer, and her brother Samuel Johnson is ready to talk. How is he coping? Is he okay? After years fundraising for Love Your Sister, what are his plans now? Yesterday, Sunday, Mia Freedman and her producer Elissa Ratliff headed to a house in the Canberra suburbs where Sam and Connie’s inner circle were gathering. They weren’t...

Samantha X describes herself as a normal person who does an unconventional job. She’s a 43-year-old business woman, journalist, author, a mother of two primary-school-age kids and she's Australia’s highest paid escort. Her real name is Amanda Goff, and before she was one of the country's most famous sex workers she was a beauty editor at a glossy magazine. So how do you manage two live...

Annabel Crabb can make anything interesting. Whether she’s making Cory Bernardi seem human or making paella with some obscure backbencher on her hit ABCTV show Kitchen Cabinet, she is one of the most smart and delightful women on the planet. It is no surprise then, that her new show about Parliament House is extremely compelling. Yes, you just read that sentence. From a fight over the kangar...

Nothing good happens to you after you turn 40. That’s what you think before….you know, you turn 40. Holly Wainwright did quite a lot before 40. She moved to Australia from Manchester, rose through the ranks of celebrity magazines, met her partner and had two kids. But that wasn’t the end. Soon after turning 40, Holly came to work at Mamamia where she embarked on a whole new chap...

Wellness. Just reading that word makes you feel more healthy. Calmer. More virtuous. That’s why marketers are using the hell out of it, slapping “WELLNESS” on everything from yoga mats to activewear, vitamin supplements. But what does wellness actually mean? At a particularly unhealthy point in her life, journalist Brigid Delaney received an email from her editor about an assignm...

When you think of a psychopath, you probably imagine someone like serial killer Ivan Milat. But according to David Gillespie, it's more likely to be your boss or your grandma. Five to 10 per cent of the population qualify as psychopathic, and the rate can be as high as 20 percent among corporate leaders and politicians. So how do you spot them? What do you do if you have to work for or with t...

Last year, George McEncroe had an epiphany. The single mum of four teenagers applied, twice, to be an Uber driver, but something didn't feel right about it. At the same time, her eldest daughter and her friends were walking home from parties because they didn't feel safe in either taxis or ride-share cars.  "I wish there was a female-only ridesharing service," she thought.  So she decide...

On the 7th of July, 2012, Kathy Kelly's family changed forever. The mother of three was at home with her husband Ralph when they received a phone call to tell them their 18-year-old son Thomas had been assaulted in Sydney’s Kings Cross just after 10pm. He was the victim of what came to be known as a 'cowards' punch', a random king-hit. Thomas never regained consciousness and two days later,...

You’re 24, you’re on holidays with your mates in Bali, and you catch a cold. It’s nothing to write home about. Probably just a bug that was going around. But then you get home. And you’ve still got this cold. You can’t shake it. So you go to the doctors, and they tell you you’ve actually got pneumonia. So you take the drugs, and you hope you get better. Four mon...

25 years ago Cameron Daddo was the bloke every teenage girl in the 80's wanted to marry. He was the host of dating show Perfect Match, a multiple Logie winner, and he even released an album. Then, he married Dolly cover girl Alison Brahe and moved to America. Which is where things got interesting. Their marriage fell apart. But because this was the early 90s and pre-Internet, Alison and Cameron go...

Obsessive compulsive disorder is one of those things that people often joke about. Like, “You should see her desk at work; she's totally OCD". Or "I eat the same breakfast every day because I'm OCD." Actual OCD is very different. It can derail and even destroy your life. That's very nearly what happened to 23-year-old old model Lily Bailey. Hers manifested as a voice in her head when she was...

Debbie Malone says she 'saw dead people' as a child but found a way to shut them out. Then, after experiencing six near-death experiences in 1992, she began to reconnect to the spirit world and decided to put her visions to use. Now she works with the police as a psychic medium who can be used to pick up information that may provide new lines of inquiry in an unsolved crime... Whether you're a bel...

If you’re a woman of a certain age, the name Alison Brahe will make you squeal. Or at least step back in time to the 80's and 90's when she was on the cover of Dolly. And Cleo. And Cosmo. And then she married Australia’s most eligible bachelor, Cameron Daddo, who was the host of the dating show, Perfect Match. They were the Brad and Jen of Australia; the golden couple of their time. No...

Tina Arena was the child star who could. From her days as a 9-year-old on Young Talent Time , she matured into one of Australia's most successful singer/songwriters. Now, 40 years after she first appeared on TV, 'Tiny Tina' reflects on the sacrifices she made. From working 6 days a week, 52 weeks of the year during her Young Talent Time tenure, to making it big in Europe after realising Chain...

Pregnancy has never been easy for Sally Obermeder. In 2011, with the help of IVF, she fell pregnant. Nine months later she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She gave birth to baby Annabelle and then underwent 16 rounds of chemotherapy and two mastectomies, all while raising a newborn. After getting the all clear, Sally knew she wanted another child. The only problem was she couldn't have one. So w...

Best-selling author, college professor and writer Roxane Gay's new book  Hunger is not one of those happy tales that has a beaming photo of her on the cover, standing in one giant leg of her old pants. As she explains to Mia in this interview, it's also not just a story about obesity. It’s an extraordinary look at the trauma that triggered her to very deliberately gain weight. ‘Hu...

Maggie Alderson is a lot of things. She’s a former fashion magazine editor, mother-of-one, cancer survivor, and columnist. She’s stood behind Anna Wintour in the queue for the toilets at Fashion week in Milan. Written ten novels. And given some of the best fashion advice, Australia has ever seen. But Maggie Alderson is so much more than fashion and fiction. She opens up about&nbsp...

This episode is a bit different. Instead of asking the inappropriate questions, Mia Freedman is answering them. Yep, she's in the hot seat. Sitting across from one of the world’s most formidable interviewers and journalists, Leigh Sales, talking about her new book  Work Strife Balance.  And, it's pretty epic. This was recorded in front of 300 people, and unlike most of he...

There are many assumptions made about Muslim women. That they are oppressed. Repressed. Distressed.  Depressed. Victims of a religion that persecutes them. That there is no way you can be a Muslim and a feminist. Susan Carland disagrees.  A devout Muslim woman, she converted from Christianity when she was a teenager.  Now an academic, she has been fighting assumptions ever since. In...

Vanessa Cranfield learned her baby girl had down syndrome on the day she was born. While the doctors and nurses ushered her husband out of the room to tell him, the young mum was faced with a dawning reality; and a lifetime of unknowns.  Gretel is now in her early twenties, with two other siblings. This is a beautiful, candid interview about parenting a child with a disability. About wha...

Samuel Johnson has two sisters, one Gold Logie and some frozen sperm sitting in a freezer at a clinic somewhere in Melbourne.  Across his career, he's been in all the iconic shows of the 90s; Home and Away, Blue Heelers, Halifax FP and The Secret Life Of Us. But despite his success on screen, he's had a lot of personal tragedy and hardship in his life. Drugs. Booze. Mothers and girl...

When Chloe Shorten separated from her husband of 10 years, she was paranoid it would somehow affect her two young children. Then, when she remarried Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and blended her family, she got even more paranoid. So, she went hunting for help. For books, for studies, for information about the best way to do everything from “the talk” when you sit your kids down to te...

When was the last time you bought a packet of tampons or pads? Do you remember how much they cost? Did you shop around looking for the cheapest possible option? Did you have to weigh up your priorities between say…..feeding your kids or bleeding all over your clothes? When Rochelle Courtenay read that homeless women would often have to choose between food and sanitary items, she decide...

Who would you choose to play you in a Hollywood movie? It's a question you might have pondered. Little did Sue Brierley know that one day, she would be sitting in a Hollywood theatre, watching Nicole Kidman portray her story on the big screen. When she was just a teen, the Tasmanian girl had a vision that she would adopt a child from India, instead of giving birth to her own. Saroo, the little boy...