Elizabeth Day is an award-winning author and broadcaster and founder of Daylight Productions.
She is the author of 10 books, spanning both fiction and non-fiction and is a Sunday Times Number 1 bestseller. Her latest novel is One Of Us.
Her chart-topping podcast, How To Fail With Elizabeth Day, is a celebration of all of the things that haven’t gone right. Every week, in a one-on-one interview, a guest discusses what they have learned from failure. Previous guests of How to Fail include Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kate Winslet, Jon Bon Jovi, Michelle Yeoh, Kazuo Ishiguro, Malcolm Gladwell, Stanley Tucci, Jamie Dornan, Gloria Steinem, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Andrew Scott and Simon Cowell.
In 2019 it won the Rising Star Award at the British Podcast Awards. In 2020, Elizabeth was given a prestigious Harper’s Bazaar ‘Women of the Year’ award for ‘bringing solace to the nation with her sensitivity and wit.’
How To Fail Live tours have played to multiple sell-out venues internationally, including The London Palladium and the Sydney Opera House.
Elizabeth has written two books inspired by the podcast: How To Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong, is part-memoir, part-manifesto. It is also a Sunday Times top 5 bestseller.
Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong was described by Alain de Botton as ‘beautiful, timely and humane.’
To date, Elizabeth has written six novels and four works of non-fiction which collectively have gained her a Betty Trask Award, Observer Book of the Year and a Richard and Judy Summer Book Club pick.
Her fifth novel, Magpie, became an instant Sunday Times bestseller and was described as ‘the most gripping psychological thriller of the year’. Her most recent work of non-fiction, Friendaholic: Confessions of a Friendship Addict, entered the Sunday Times bestseller charts at number one. Her work has been translated into several languages and she is a bestselling author in Holland and Italy.
Alongside her writing, Elizabeth is an adept broadcaster. She has presented the Sky Arts Book Club Live, BBC Radio 4’s Open Book and shows on Classic FM.
Elizabeth grew up in Northern Ireland and her first job was for The Derry Journal.
After graduating from Cambridge University with a Double First in History, she worked for The Evening Standard, The Sunday Telegraph and the Observer where she was a staff feature writer for eight years.
She won a British Press Award in 2004 for Young Journalist of the Year and was Highly Commended as Feature Writer of the Year in 2013.
She has written for numerous publications since then, including The Times, the Guardian, New York Magazine, the Observer, Vogue, Grazia, Elle and Vanity Fair.
From 2018-2021 she had a weekly column for You Magazine on the Mail on Sunday. She is proud to be an ambassador for Samaritans and the Miscarriage Association.
Elizabeth is a sought-after public speaker, and has delivered talks and workshops to numerous organisations including Google, Facebook, HSBC, JP Morgan, Netflix, Barclays, Mishcon de Reya and the Guardian Masterclass series.
“If we are able to remove both fear and ego when we encounter crisis, we will see failure more clearly for what it is: not as something that defines us, but as a missing piece of knowledge that helps us come closer to completing the jigsaw puzzle of who we truly are.”
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