Zhanna was born in the former Soviet Union and moved to the Midwest in the early 1990s. She has a master’s degree in Writing and Publishing from DePaul University and has been published in many literary magazines, including Ninth Letter, Bellevue Literary Review, Midwestern Gothic, Another Chicago Magazine, and Michigan Quarterly Review, which received an honorary mention in Best American Essays 2014. Her first novel, At the End of the World Turn Left, is forthcoming with Polis Books in April 2021. She lives in Milwaukee with her daughter and husband, saxophonist for Jazz-Rock fusion band Marbin.