About

Julia Zarankin is a writer, birder, (occasional) birdsplainer, ZEISS Optics Ambassador, lecturer, Yiddishist, and culture-tour-leader based in Toronto. A recent DeGroot Foundation Courage to Write grantee, her writing has appeared in Audubon, Sierra Club Magazine, Canadian Geographic, The Walrus, Hazlitt, The Letters Page, Cottage Life, Orion Magazine, Threepenny Review, Prism International, Antioch Review, Birding Magazine, Maisonneuve, The New Quarterly, Ontario Nature and The Globe and Mail. Her story, “Black-legged Kittiwake,” was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize. Julia’s birding/life aspirations: “To sport the hairdo of a Cedar Waxwing, acquire the wardrobe of a Northern Flicker and develop the confidence of a Ross’s Goose.”

A few years ago, Michael Enright interviewed Julia on CBC’s Sunday Edition about the person she thinks about most, when she’s not thinking about birds (or her husband): Anton Chekhov.

Julia’s credentials on the Russian & European literature front include an AB from Brown University and a PhD from Princeton University (both in Comparative Literature). Julia is also a proud alumna of the Banff Centre’s Literary Journalism program, Bread Loaf workshops, as well as mentorships from Diaspora Dialogues. She has been awarded residencies at MacDowell, Monson Arts and Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts. In 2024, Julia was Prince Rupert’s artist-in-residence at the North Pacific Cannery.

Julia’s writing has been supported by grants from the Access Copyright Foundation (Marian Hebb Research Grant), Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts. Julia was a 2022-2023 Translation Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, MA, and her translation of Shifra Lipshits’ memoir Dreams and Reality is forthcoming with Cornell University Press in 2026.

Julia is a proud member and supporter of the TOC, OFO, Birds Canada, ABA — incredible organizations that support birds (and the people who love them).

Select Publications:

The Wonders of Weird Duck Time, Sierra Club Magazine, January 2026.

Get to Know the Blue Jays, Winners of the Bird World, Canadian Geographic, November 2025.

Why Everyone You Know is Suddenly a Birder, The Walrus, September 2025.

To my Surprise, I learned that Birding can be an Adrenaline-infused Sport, The Globe and Mail, August 16, 2025.

Early Risers, Cottage Life, June 2025.

What’s in a Bird Name, Sierra Magazine, April 2024.

The Kirtland’s Warbler Recovery Effort in Ontario: If you Build it They Will Come, ON Nature, March 2023.

How I learned to love my body as an Adult Ballerina, CBC, March 2022.

Russia is Destroying the Ukraine of my Memory, Globe and Mail, August 2022.

Seabirds in Newfoundland, Toronto Star (August 12, 2022)

In Fine Form: The Human Connection to Feathers, Cottage Life (August 2022)