Chanelle Benz

Benz was born in London to English and Antiguan parents.^[1] Benz lived in London until the age of 7, when her family moved to New Jersey, then Sunset, Utah, and lastly, Centreville, Virginia.^[2]

Benz earned a bachelor's degree in acting from Boston University before earning an MFA in creative writing from Syracuse University in 2012.^[3][4] At Syracuse University, she studied under the writer George Saunders.^[2][1]

Benz published her first book, a short story collection titled The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead in 2017.^[1][5][6] In 2019, Benz published her first novel, The Gone Dead, about a woman who returns to her childhood home in the Mississippi Delta and uncovers information regarding the death of her father.^[7][1][2] The novel was reviewed positively in The New York Times^[8] and The Washington Post.^[9]

Both books were published by Ecco Press, an imprint of HarperCollins.^[10][11]

Benz has also published works in Granta, The New York Times, Guernica, Fence, and The American Reader, among other publications.^[12]