Julia Whelan

Julia May Whelan (born May 8, 1984) is an American actress, narrator and author. As an actress, she is best known for her role as Grace Manning on the television family drama series Once and Again (1999–2002), and her co-starring role in the 2002 Lifetime movie The Secret Life of Zoey. A noted child actor, Whelan first appeared on screen at the age of 11 and continued to take television roles until her matriculation into Middlebury College in 2004; Whelan graduated magna cum laude from Middlebury in 2008 after spending the 2006–2007 academic year as a visiting student at Lincoln College, Oxford. and yearly trips to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon deepened her interest in an acting career. At age ten she began acting lessons with actor/screenwriter Geof Prysirr. They developed a close relationship, and eventually Prysirr became her guardian, escorting her on trips to Los Angeles, where she soon found professional success.

Whelan moved to Los Angeles with Prysirr and his wife, Days of Our Lives actress Derya Ruggles, particularly the younger cast members, who were praised for their sensitive performances; Whelan was nominated individually in March 2000 for Best Performance in a TV Drama Series – Supporting Young Actress.

After Once and Again wrapped up its three-year run, Whelan co-starred in the 2002 Lifetime Television movie, The Secret Life of Zoey, as a model student struggling with a prescription drug addiction. Mia Farrow portrayed her mother and Andrew McCarthy was her rehab counselor. The movie was promoted alongside Lifetime TV rebroadcasts of Once and Again. Whelan continued to take television roles through 2004, when she enrolled in Middlebury College.

Whelan spent the 2006–2007 academic year as a visiting student at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Audiobook narration Whelan has won acclaim for her narration of many audiobooks, including Gillian Flynn's 2012 thriller Gone Girl (co-read with Kirby Heyborne), Nora Roberts' The Witness, for which she won Best Romance at the 2013 Audie Awards, and Tara Westover's Educated, for which she won Best Female Narrator in 2019 at the same awards. Whelan also narrated the award-winning novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, the New York Times bestseller Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes, and her own novel, My Oxford Year.

As of July 2022, Whelan had narrated more than 400 audiobooks, as well as articles for New York, The New Yorker and other magazines.

Whelan also narrates long-form nonfiction journalism, including articles from The New Yorker, The Atlantic, ProPublica, and Vanity Fair.

In 2024, Whelan started the audiobook publisher and distributor Audiobrary.

Author In 2018, Whelan published her debut novel, My Oxford Year, which Entertainment Weekly called "a breathtakingly perfect picture of Oxford" and "a powerfully heartbreaking and life-affirming tribute to love and to choice". In 2022, she released her sophomore novel, Thank You for Listening.

Adaptation In 2024, filming began on an adaptation of the film My Oxford Year for Netflix.

Filmography