Conversations | Friday Best

Teresa Truda

By Rachel Shepheard, 14 June 2016

Since she can remember, Teresa Truda has always felt like a little bit of an outsider – she's always pushed a little harder

Chelsea Rustrum

By Steph Stepan, 4 March 2016

Chelsea Rustrum is a writer and speaker who believes we’re better off sharing. And she’s not just in it for the warm and fuzzies. She thinks we’re better off financially too.

Mary Jensen

By Rachel Shepheard, 19 February 2016

Mary Jensen is described by those who know her best as a ‘big picture gal.’ She’s a materials science engineer with an MBA from MIT

Esther Altorfer

By Rachel Shepheard, 18 December 2015

Esther Altorfer knew only one thing growing up—that she wanted to have an impact.

Hannah Macdougall

By Steph Stepan, 11 December 2015

Hannah Macdougall is an elite Para athlete, dual Paralympian and motivational speaker who knows a thing or two about perseverance.

Anya Ruvinskaya

By Rachel Shepheard, 20 November 2015

Anya Ruvinskaya’s story is dizzying and dazzling in equal mixes.

Samah Hadid

By Steph Stepan, 6 November 2015

Samah Hadid is an Australian Lebanese human rights advocate living in New York.

Aria Rockwood

By Rachel Shepheard, 23 October 2015

Aria Rockwood did not have the typical upbringing. Born to a polygamist father

Elena Rossini

By Steph Stepan, 9 October 2015

Elena Rossini is an Italian filmmaker, photographer, director and writer living in Paris.

Adenike ‘Niki’ Corion

By Rachel Shepheard, 25 September 2015

Adenike ‘Niki’ Corion knows how hard it can be to balance career and family.

Rachel Hills

By Steph Stepan, 11 September 2015

Rachel Hills is an Australian writer living in New York who, in many ways, was destined to write about sex.

Susan Hall

By Rachel Shepheard, 28 August 2015

A few years ago the brilliant Susan Hall was a workaholic: a marathon runner with a doctorate of feminist theology

Robyn Exton

By Steph Stepan, 14 August 2015

Robyn Exton is a British entrepreneur living in California. As founder and CEO of the lesbian dating app HER,

Liberty Tillemann-Dick

By Rachel Shepheard, 7 August 2015

Interviews like this remind me why Friday Best exists.

Ash Huang

By Steph Stepan, 31 July 2015

Ash Huang is a designer, writer and illustrator based in San Francisco. She has worked for Pinterest, Twitter and Dropbox and loves to barrack for the underdog.

Elyse de Valle

By Rachel Shepheard, 12 June 2015

Elyse de Valle is a Melbourne based artist whose talent has taken her across Australia as well as to Italy and America

Kate Kendall

By Steph Stepan, 5 June 2015

Kate Kendall is a San Francisco-based, British-Australian entrepreneur and writer.

Johanna Wehkamp

By Rachel Shepheard, 29 May 2015

Johanna Wehkamp was only a child when she first became interested in the world’s forests.

Zoe Moore

By Steph Stepan, 22 May 2015

Have you ever been in one of those work meetings where it feels like everyone has forgotten that we’re just regular human beings?

Nicole Gibson

By Rachel Shepheard, 15 May 2015

There’s no one quite like Nicole Gibson. A battle with anorexia in her teens transformed her life into a mission

Cat Noone

By Steph Stepan, 8 May 2015

Cat Noone is an entrepreneur and designer from Brooklyn, New York, who now lives in Berlin.

Shannon Kelly

By Rachel Shepheard, 1 May 2015

Shannon Kelly is a chameleon, a woman of many talents and many careers.

Verita Stewart

By Steph Stepan, 24 April 2015

It’s been a few years since Verita Stewart bought her first road bike and began cycling around El Dorado in country Victoria.

Nada Elsayed

By Rachel Shepheard, 17 April 2015

Nada Elsayed is Sudanese, though she was born, and spent the first sixteen years of her life, in Saudi Arabia.

Jen Newcomer

By Steph Stepan, 10 April 2015

Jen Newcomer has figured out that life is either going to be type one or type two fun;

Maria-Jose Soerens

By Rachel Shepheard, 3 April 2015

Maria-Jose Soerens views life’s chance encounters and opportunities as invitations and she has yet to turn one down.

Ann Lewis

By Steph Stepan, 27 March 2015

Somewhere on a wall in NYC, a little owl with the words ‘Love Life’ next to it marks the spot of Ann Lewis’s first stencil.

Lauren Casey

By Rachel Shepheard, 20 March 2015

At fourteen-years-and-seven-months-old, Lauren Casey sought permission to get a job at McDonald’s

Anne Kingsley

By Steph Stepan, 13 March 2015

We’ve spoken to our fair share of teachers here at Friday Best, and each one has given us their own brilliant take on education.

Lucy Richards

By Rachel Shepheard, 6 March 2015

Lucy Richards is adept at living in the present moment. From a very young age, she has been mindful of the fact that self doubt

Joanne Smyth

By Steph Stepan, 27 February 2015

Joanne Smyth hesitates at first when I approach her for an interview. How, she wonders, can you explain your story to someone when you’re still trying

Karen Alexander

By Rachel Shepheard, 20 February 2015

Karen Alexander is described by those who know her best as effervescent. And it’s true.

Rachel Barnard

By Steph Stepan, 13 February 2015

A typical day in the life of Rachel Barnard is just as likely to include a worn out pair of jeans as it is a ball gown.

Paige Crosland Anderson

By Rachel Shepheard, 6 February 2015

Part way through my conversation with Paige Crosland Anderson, we are interrupted by a tiny, blonde girl dressed as a mermaid.

Jenny Peng

By Steph Stepan, 30 January 2015

As a kid, Jenny Peng always spoke up. Getting her point across wasn’t always easy: she moved to Australia with her family at the age of twelve from Taiwan

Rebecka Jonsson

By Rachel Shepheard, 23 January 2015

It seems as though Rebecka Jonsson’s path in life was set before she was even born.

Suralini Fernando

By Steph Stepan, 16 January 2015

You know you’re speaking to someone pretty extraordinary when you have the constant urge to write most of what they say down.

Nikki Wangler

By Rachel Shepheard, 19 December 2014

Nikki Wangler finds her inspiration in everyone she meets and everything she encounters.

Kelly Underwood

By Steph Stepan, 12 December 2014

Kelly Underwood is a mum and teacher who can’t go past the power of family.

Maria Amelia Randall

By Rachel Shepheard, 5 December 2014

It was Maria Amelia Randall’s perfectly crafted lattes that first caught the attention of fellow Friday Bester, Roisin Connolly,

Sarah Izen

By Steph Stepan, 28 November 2014

If you had told 15-year-old Sarah Izen that she’d one day become a neuroscientist she would have laughed at you. She hated science.

Bree Pagliuso

By Rachel Shepheard, 21 November 2014

I first met Bree at primary school when we were four years old. For the next seven years we entertained ourselves and anyone

Rosealee Pearson

By Steph Stepan, 14 November 2014

Rosie Pearson has just driven across the desert—from Broome to Darwin—and is grinning at me, all kind eyes and wide smile.

Roisin Connolly

By Rachel Shepheard, 7 November 2014

Roisin Connolly is single-minded in her desire to forge a career on her own terms. Straight out of university Roisin launched

Eva Jaeger

By Steph Stepan, 31 October 2014

When I first ask Eva Jaeger to tell me about herself over email, she replies with a photograph.

Carolin Siebert

By Rachel Shepheard, 24 October 2014

Carolin Siebert is only 25 years old but she speaks five languages fluently, is learning her sixth, has two kids,

Jill Jones

By Rachel Shepheard, 17 October 2014

Since chatting with Jill Jones I have returned again and again to something she said in her interview that stuck with me

Olivia Murphy

By Rachel Shepheard, 10 October 2014

Olivia Murphy is an old soul. As a child her parents used to joke that she was twelve going on 45.

Sedia Bayard

By Steph Stepan, 3 October 2014

If I had to describe Sedia Bayard in just a word, I would say grateful.

Laura Lantieri

By Steph Stepan, 26 September 2014

When faced with those ‘Who are you?’ questions, Laura Lantieri’s answers are often contradictory.

Marta Soszynska

By Rachel Shepheard, 19 September 2014

Marta Soszynska is a crusader. She was born and raised in Warsaw, Poland, but has spent the last five years

Jess Loudon

By Steph Stepan, 12 September 2014

Jess Loudon is a lawyer turned actor who chats to me like we’ve known each other for five years rather than five minutes.

Emma Hamilton

By Rachel Shepheard, 5 September 2014

Emma Hamilton arrived at The Crossroads of Should and Must a few years ago while working at a department store

Lynsay Hilsabeck

By Rachel Shepheard, 28 August 2014

Lynsay Hilsabeck’s life is full and happy and refreshingly unconventional.

Clare McFadden

By Steph Stepan, 22 August 2014

The loveliest thing about speaking with Clare McFadden is that she’s genuinely surprised at how life has panned out for her.

Steph Stepan

By Rachel Shepheard, 21 August 2014

I read about Steph before I met her. Starting a new job at an independent, Melbourne based publisher was nerve wracking enough

Rachel Shepheard

By Steph Stepan, 19 August 2014

Living in Melbourne, you sometimes have the feeling that there are far less than the fabled six degrees of separation orbiting around you.