Julianne Pachico was born in 1985 in Cambridge, England. She grew up in Cali, Colombia, where her parents worked in international development as agricultural social scientists.

In 2004 she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she completed her B.A. at Reed College in Comparative Literature. In 2012 she returned to England in order to complete her M.A. in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, where she was a recipient of UEA's Creative Writing International Scholarship. She also holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from UEA.

She had a short story on the long list for the Sunday Times Prize, and is also the only writer to have two stories in the 2015 anthology of the Best British Short Stories. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published by The New Yorker, Granta, The White Review, and Lighthouse, among others. She holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and the U.K.

She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at UEA, and co-convenor of the MA in Prose Fiction.