Overview
Elizabeth Day is an award-winning English author, broadcaster, journalist, and founder of Daylight Productions. She hosts the chart-topping podcast How To Fail with Elizabeth Day—a celebration of what didn’t go right—and has written multiple Sunday Times bestselling books spanning fiction and non-fiction. Official materials describe her as a Sunday Times Number 1 bestseller and author of 10 books; her latest novel is One Of Us.
SUCCESS readers who learn through honest failure stories (rather than only highlight reels) will recognize Day’s podcast-and-book ecosystem as a cultural counterpart to high-performance hustle narratives.
Why SUCCESS readers care
How To Fail reframes failure as curriculum. Guests have included Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kate Winslet, Kazuo Ishiguro, Malcolm Gladwell, Gloria Steinem, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and many others. The podcast won the Rising Star Award at the British Podcast Awards (2019); in 2020 Harper’s Bazaar named Day a Woman of the Year for “bringing solace to the nation with her sensitivity and wit.” Live tours have sold out venues including the London Palladium and Sydney Opera House.
Career path
A former Observer feature writer (2007–2016, per Wikipedia), Day built a dual fiction/non-fiction career (Betty Trask Award; Richard & Judy Book Club pick; Magpie as an instant Sunday Times bestseller) and launched Daylight Productions to elevate storytelling formats including “podclass” series such as How To Write A Book. Wikipedia notes she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
What she teaches / explores
- Learning from failure as a path to succeeding better
- Friendship, fertility grief, and modern relationship honesty in non-fiction
- Fiction that examines power, belonging, and psychological tension
- Podcast craft and writing education via Daylight Productions
Who it's for
- Readers burned out on perfection culture
- SUCCESS audiences who want literary + podcast PD
- People processing career, friendship, or family disappointment
- Fans of long-form interviews about resilience
Frequently asked
Podcast or books first?
Either—the podcast is the weekly practice; How To Fail / Failosophy capture the manifesto; novels are a separate lane.
Is howtofail.com the official site?
Her primary official site is elizabethday.org (about, books, podcasts). Use that for current projects.
Fiction too?
Yes—multiple novels alongside the failure/friendship non-fiction.