Elizabeth Day

Elizabeth Day (born 10 November 1978) is an English novelist, journalist, and broadcaster. Day was a feature writer for The Observer from 2007 to 2016 and has written four novels.

Early life

The daughter of Tom Day and his wife Christine,[1] Day was born in the south of England, but raised in Northern Ireland,[2] when her father became a general surgeon at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry.[3] Interested in being a writer from the age of seven, she realised journalism was a preparation for her long-term goal, and was a columnist for the Derry Journal at the age of 12.[4] Day was educated at Malvern St James Girls School in Worcestershire,[5] and read History at Queens' College, Cambridge,[6] gaining a double first in History.[1]

Journalism

After her graduation, Day worked for the Evening Standard on the Londoners' Diary[7] for a year before becoming a news reporter on The Sunday Telegraph, initially on a three-month trial.[4] While working for the Telegraph, Day won the Young Journalist of the Year Award at the British Press Awards in 2004.[8] Subsequently, Day wrote for Elle and The Mail on Sunday.[3][9]

From 2007 until 25 March 2016, Day was a feature writer for The Observer.[10] In the UK Press Awards for journalism published during 2012, an event organised by the Society of Editors, Day gained a commendation in the "Feature Writer of the Year (Broadsheet)" category.[11][12]

Day's regular podcast "How to Fail", launched in 2018, led to a non-fiction book How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong which was published in 2019.[13] Katie Glass in The Sunday Times considered it "a fascinating, thoughtful, honest, often moving series of interviews with successful people about the moments when their lives went wrong."[14]

Novels

Day's first three novels were Scissors Paper Stone (2012), Home Fires (2013) and Paradise City (2015). The debut novel won the Betty Trask Award for first novels by authors under the age of 35. It recounts marred family relationships affected by a history of child abuse from a male lead character. Of Scissors Paper Stone, Melissa Katsoulis in The Sunday Telegraph felt that "it indicates a thoughtful and conscientious new voice in fiction."[15] In The Guardian, Catherine Taylor was less impressed believing "the icy remoteness at the heart of the book ultimately disengages the reader – as if authorial control has been retained at the expense of a vital, necessary spark".[16]

From a belief that women's responses to the First World War had been insufficiently explored as a subject, Day wrote Home Fires. It combines two connected female-centred stories relating to the aftermath of that war and the more recent conflict in South Sudan,[17] as well as the difficulties responding to the old age of loved ones.[4] Viv Groskop, in her review for The Observer, felt that the author's "great strength is her psychological insight" and that Day's work of fiction is "a beautifully written novel whose quietly discomfiting tone stays with you for a long while afterwards."[18]

Paradise City was published in the UK in spring 2015.[19] Amanda Craig in The Daily Telegraph described it as "an advance which, while retaining her sensitivity, signals the emergence of a literary novelist whose optimism and generosity should gain her a much bigger audience."[20] Charles Shafaieh in The New York Times wrote that Day's descriptions of London "reveal her sensitivity to nuanced detail. But the way the priorities of Paradise City so accurately represent the troubling state of today’s Britain is an unlikely, and far from ideal, testament to her skill as a writer."[21] Day's first three novels were published in the UK by Bloomsbury.[19]

Of The Party (2017), Lucy Scholes in The Observer writes that is "a well-paced slow-burner of a literary thriller" and concludes her review by commenting that the book is "[b]rimming with betrayal, corruption and hypocrisy, The Party is a gripping page-turner".[22] The novel was published by Fourth Estate in Summer 2017 in the UK and Little, Brown in the United States.

Pin Drop Studio

Day is co-founder of the cultural organisation Pin Drop Studio, which holds regular literature salons in London and other major cities, as well as the annual Pin Drop Short Story Award in collaboration with arts institution the Royal Academy of Arts.[9]

Personal life

Day married journalist Kamal Ahmed, the Business Editor of BBC News, in December 2011.[3][23] The couple separated in February 2015, and are now divorced.[13][24]

Bibliography
Fiction
  • Scissors Paper Stone (2012)
  • Home Fires (2013)
  • Paradise City (2015)
  • The Party (2017)
Non-fiction
  • How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong (2019)
gollark: Then a less general one since that took unboundedly large amounts of time to run.
gollark: Due to quirkiness with my design process, instead of starting with "calculator" I started with "highly general pattern matching and reduction engine".
gollark: osmarkscalculator™ is actually\* the closest\*\* available\*\*\* thing to Macron.
gollark: It would be "Macron" in that it would:- have macros- use "Macron" syntax and not Lisp
gollark: I was unironically considering this.

References
  1. Leonard, Sue (5 February 2011). "The dark side of Day". Irish Examiner.
  2. Day, Elizabeth (13 May 2016). "Breaking down the beauty of Eurovision". The Pool. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  3. Brankin, Una (2 June 2015). "Elizabeth Day on the scandal that inspired her brilliant new novel". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved 23 August 2015.
  4. Nikesh [Shukla] (13 March 2013), "Elizabeth Day: Home fires burning bright", Book Trust.
  5. "Prizegiving 2012" Archived 12 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Malvern St James, OGA News, Spring 2013, p. 6.
  6. "Faculty of History – Careers", University of Cambridge
  7. Day, Elizabeth (2004). "Why women love journalism". British Journalism Review. 15 (2). pp. 21–25. Archived from the original on 8 December 2013.
  8. "Telegraph wins plaudits for war coverage". The Daily Telegraph. 18 March 2004. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  9. "Elizabeth Day", Pin Drop Studio biography.
  10. "Feature writer calls it a Day at The Observer". ResponseSource.com. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
  11. "Winners 2012" Archived 13 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine, The UK Press Awards.
  12. "Press Awards for 2012 – winners", The Guardian, 8 March 2013.
  13. Petter, Olivia (31 March 2019). "Elizabeth Day: 'I'm sick of being told that I'm not allowed to tell my story'". The Independent. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  14. Glass, Katie (31 March 2019). "How to Fail by Elizabeth Day review — even divorce has a bright side". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 27 March 2020. (subscription required)
  15. Katsoulis, Melissa (23 January 2011). "Scissors, Paper, Stone by Elizabeth Day: review". The Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  16. Taylor, Catherine (15 January 2011). "Scissors Paper Stone by Elizabeth Day – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  17. Burke, Declan (24 August 2013). "Women on the verge: when the 'home fires' burn out". Irish Examiner. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  18. Groskop, Viv (14 March 2013). "Home Fires by Elizabeth Day – review". The Observer. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  19. Page, Benedicte (10 October 2013). "Elizabeth Day novels to Bloomsbury". The Bookseller. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  20. Craig, Amanda (27 May 2015). "Paradise City, review: 'elegant and sprightly'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  21. Shafaieh, Charles (8 January 2016). "Paradise City, by Elizabeth Day". The New York Tiimes. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  22. Scholes, Lucy (16 July 2017). "The Party by Elizabeth Day review – well-paced literary thriller". The Observer. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  23. "BBC appoints Telegraph's Kamal Ahmed as business editor". BBC News. 20 December 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2013.
  24. Day, Elizabeth (2 April 2016). "The rise of the new bachelors (they're women)". The Times. London. Retrieved 2 April 2016. (subscription required)
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