Elizabeth Day

Elizabeth Day is an award-winning author and broadcaster and founder of Daylight Productions.

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, Malcolm Gladwell, Stanley Tucci, Jamie Dornan, Gloria Steinem, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Andrew Scott, Adam Buxton and Bernadine Evaristo. 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.’

The podcast has been featured on multiple broadcast shows, including The Russell Howard Hour, The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, The Sara Cox Show and The Chris Evans Breakfast Show.

It was listed as one of BBC America’s Most Buzzworthy Podcasts of 2018. In print, it has been featured in Grazia, The Times, Harper’s Bazaar, the Independent, the Guardian.

The 2019/20 How To Fail Live nationwide tour played to multiple sell-out venues across the country, including dates at The London Palladium, The National Theatre and the Southbank Centre in London, and iconic venues such as The Lowry in Salford and The Mac in Belfast.

Elizabeth has written two books off the back of 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.

In 2022, she launched a second podcast with her best friend, the psychotherapist Emma Reed-Turrell, called Best Friend Therapy. The duo chat about everyday mental health challenges and therapeutic topics in an accessible and reassuring way.

To date, Elizabeth has written five novels and three 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.