WRITING

Grace Dent first dipped her toe into the world of journalism whilst she was still at University, writing features for Cosmopolitan magazine, before moving to Marie Claire as their editorial assistant. When she was 25, she became a freelance journalist, contributing to magazines such as Glamour and More! Between 1998 and 2000, she worked for the Daily Mirror newspaper where she wrote about international current affair topics.

This was also the same time she began writing for The Guardian. She started by writing topical pieces and columns about her likes and dislikes, including ‘World of Lather’, celebrating her love for Coronation Street (1960-). From 2010-2012, she wrote ‘Grace Dent’s TV-OD’. In 2012, she signed a joint deal with The Independent and The London Evening Standard. She then became The Guardian’s restaurant critic in 2018. Her journalism won her the Reviewer of the Year award at the 2017 London Restaurant Festival.

Grace has written 11 novels for teenagers, one of which – Diary of a Snob (2009) – was acquired by Nickelodeon for adaptation. Her first non-fiction title How to Leave Twitter: My Time as Queen of the Universe and Why This Must Stop was released in 2011, followed by her memoir Hungry in 2020, and Comfort Eating in 2023.

TV AND RADIO

Grace Dent has fronted documentaries for Sky Atlantic, Channel 4 and W. She has interviewed Game of Thrones (1996) author George RR Martin as well as presenting Thronecast (2011-2019) where celebrities analyse the TV show adaptation of the same name.

She is a regular guest on panel shows including Have I Got News For You (1990-), The Culture Show (2004-2015), Pointless Celebrities (2010-), The Apprentice (2005-) and Best of British By The Sea (2022). She is also a famous face on cooking shows such as Masterchef UK, Masterchef: The Professionals (2008-), Celebrity Masterchef (2006-) and Great British Menu (2006-).

She fronted the Radio 4 Documentary Duration Duration Duration (2012) as well as a radio tribute to Nancy Mitford, and The Untold since 2016. These documentaries give a real insight into British lives when something important is on the line. The programme has been nominated for several Audio & Radio Industry Awards.

She also has her own podcast, Comfort Eating (with The Guardian) where she asks famous guests – including Stephen Fry and Craig David – what they eat when they’re home alone. The podcast was an instant success, sitting at the number one spot for over a month. She also appeared with food writer Felicity Cloake in an online live-stream event to discuss her memoir Hungry in 2020.

HOSTING AND JUDGING

Grace was the Creative Director for the Evening Standard’s London Food Month in 2017 alongside Tom Parker Bowles, which won the Best Debut Event award at the 2017 Event Awards.

In 2008 she was part of the judging panel for the Young Minds book awards, as well as a judge for the 2011 Roald Dahl Funny Prize.

She regularly hosts corporate and private events for clients big and small, including BAFTA and Sky.

Grace has become a regular face on a number of topical shows, offering witty observations on current affairs. When she attends any corporate or private event, she brings this charismatic and humerous personality to occasions across the country, keeping audiences thoroughly entertained again and again.

Grace’s most recent keynote topic is:

Reframing Midlife as a Woman’s Very Best Life

Grace is interested in reframing ‘midlife’ as your best working days, particularly for Generation X female corporate/creative employees. This is an age when you may well have lost your parents, moved through the rawest grief and found oneself with a new freedom from caring roles. Your children may have left home. Grace is tired of this stage of life being portrayed as a woman’s dotage years, where she herself ‘winds down’. Instead there is a freedom and an empowerment in this new rudderless stage. Especially if you have weathered hard times – you feel invincible. Grace thinks ageing should be reframed as a privilege. We won’t all get there. Every day past 45 should be grabbed by the hands.

Grace is passionate about women demanding the correct medication for perimenopause and menopause. She encourages women to note when they are being fobbed off over brain fog, skin issues, pain and other things that cause them to want to retire. Meanwhile male contemporaries are seen as being in ‘titan’ years where their experience is respected.  Get the pills, get the creams, take control of your health.

Grace loves taking about the joy in being ‘free from the male gaze’ – and how as women we are warned our entire lives that a time will come when men will no longer see us. We’ll be invisible in the street. No-one will ogle you anymore.  But I don’t find this unpleasant. It is massively freeing. Losing the male gaze should be embraced.

Generation X women offer a unique outlook on life. We are unusually hardy, hardworking, warhorses. We can be abrupt, we cut to the chase, we don’t like long meetings and pondering ideas to death.. We remember a time of getting things done without Slack. Without Google even, and we can juggle and have a more relaxed idea to working weekend and late nights. Grace is interesting in reframing the idea of any woman over of 45 drawing from experience is a ‘Karen’. A lot of the time: we just know what is going on as we’ve lived through it before and are simply stating our gut instinct.  If you want something done – ask a Gen X woman.

Gen X women have a huge spending power – we simply love seeing ourselves in ads. I have no interest in what a 22 year old looks like in a dress. I won’t buy it. I use brands that honour my aspirations.  We are out here, living our revenge lives – taking up hobbies and passions we have not had time to do since we were 18 and ‘life’ took over.  We want the Gen X Power Menopause pound acknowledged!

At all of her speaking engagements, Grace can talk about her career, food, life in the public eye and can be trusted to keep your occasion on track as an event host.

Call +44 1753 439 289 or email Great British Speakers now to book restaurant critic Grace Dent for your corporate event. Contact us.