Julia Panfylova
Julia is an ASMR artist, a biologist and a writer, born in Donetsk, Ukraine. When she was 27 Julia decided to run away from colourless winters, environmental pollution, and corruption in search of a better life. Aotearoa, New Zealand warmly welcomed her and became her new home.
In 2022 Julia published her first book, Lada Between Two Worlds (fantasy, middle grade), which focuses on animal rights. The process of writing brought her so much joy that it quickly became part of her daily routine and overwhelmed her leisure. She doesn’t have a lot of time to read or watch films anymore, but those favourites from the past are Spirited Away, Friends, Girl Interrupted, Terminator and everything with Leo DiCaprio. She also loves reading Si-Fi, especially Brothers Strugatsky.
Julia’s other passion is producing Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) videos. She has a YouTube channel, with 40,000 followers, that provides meditations and relaxing experiences. See www.youtube.com/c/NanaFox. Her Instagram account has 1500 followers and is steadily growing, follow her at @nana.foxnz
Julia is a vegetarian and tries to reduce her impact on living beings as much as she can. She lives with her husband and an odd-eye cat Pasha in sunny Whakatū, Aotearoa New Zealand.
What was the first book that made you cry?
I was in Intermediate. Mom told me I have to brush up on my knowledge of the Ukrainian language over summer and brought me a Ukrainian translation of The Biography of a Silver-Fox by Ernest Thompson Seton. I fell in love with it and read it many times. I guess that’s how my love for foxes was born.
If you had to do something differently as a child or teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would you do?
It’s easy to blame my parents for not supporting my passion for writing, but as a child, I could have been more confident and stubborn with what I wanted and could have believed in myself more.
Are there any secrets in your books that only a few people will find? Can you tell us one? Or give us any hints?
The most ugly scenes of my books were written in the most beautiful places of the world.
What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters of the opposite sex?
The intimidation of getting it wrong or not believable enough. It is the same with straight writing about gay, pakeha writing about Māori and vice versa. I usually do extensive research for several days and crystalise a character based on what I’ve learned.