Evgeniya Chernyshova

Evgenia Chernysheva was born on November 15, 1985, in Voronezh. Her mother worked as an accountant, and her father was a welder. Books surrounded the girl from the very first months of her life. Her mother instilled in her a love of reading, reading to her often. Evgenia began reading on her own at the age of four, and books have remained important in her life ever since. As a child, Evgenia practiced acrobatics and wushu, loved drawing, and graduated from art school. She has always loved the animal world, and perhaps that is why animals, birds, and insects often become the main characters in her books.

Her interest in writing emerged in childhood, and by the age of 16 she had begun writing for newspapers, working both as a staff and freelance writer for local print and online publications.

In 2008, she graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Voronezh State University with a degree in Advertising and PR. In 2010–2011, she studied at the School of Cultural Journalism of the PRO ARTE Foundation, supported by the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation, specializing in Music and Film Criticism. In 2014, she completed an internship in the Netherlands for graduates of the Cultural Journalism program (the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation and the PRO ARTE Foundation). Determined not to stop there, Evgenia graduated with honors from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (I. E. Repin St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture) with a degree in Theory and History of Art, earning a second higher education degree in 2018.

As the young writer herself said: “The transition to literature was, I think, a logical step from journalism, which I had been engaged in for many years. At some point, I felt the desire to talk about something beyond journalistic practice, to invent stories, to let my imagination run free. Although as a child I did not plan to become a writer, I wanted to become a veterinarian, and in the end I became a journalist. < > I draw ideas, or rather not ideas but inspiration, from art: visual art (painting, graphics, contemporary art) — since I am an art historian. I am inspired by contemporary independent animation and