About James

Born in 1991, it was not until the age of twelve that James Bailey decided he wanted to be a writer…

His childhood dream of being a tractor driver changed overnight when he came top in the Year 8 English exam. He threw himself into journalism - starting a school student newspaper, and launching a sports website gaining exclusive interviews with the likes of Usain Bolt, Rafa Nadal and Julio Iglesias.

His own sporting career was interrupted, however, when he was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a cardiac arrhythmia. After two ablation operations, he has since supported the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young by carrying the Olympic Torch, running the London Marathon, making a speech at the House of Commons, and featuring alongside Pixie Lott in BBC1’s Lifeline appeal.

James then moved to London to study Spanish at KCL, combating the capital’s rental prices by living in a Travelodge, à la Alan Partridge, and spending a year abroad in Barcelona, writing his dissertation on Catalan Independence. Whilst by day he was learning about Cervantes and García Lorca, by night he was reporting from Red Carpet premieres, with highlights including: interviewing George Clooney, being scolded by Emma Stone, being blanked by Madonna, seeing Hugh Grant in the toilets, and declaring in person his undying love for David Beckham.

After graduating, he set forth to travel the world looking to find both himself and love. After circumnavigating through 21 countries - and having found neither - he returned home to Bristol where he founded a Walking Tour company. In between guiding tourists around the city, James started penning his debut novel and completed it after being selected for Curtis Brown Creative’s Six-Month Novel Writing Course.

‘The Flip Side’ was published in 2020 by Penguin Michael Joseph in the UK, by William Morrow in the USA, and in a dozen foreign languages. It became an Apple Books bestseller and has been optioned for TV.

His second novel ‘The Way Back to You’ was published in 2022.