Chloe Benjamin

❄️ COVER REVEAL ❄️⁠ ⁠ For fans of Chloe Benjamin, here's your exclusive first look at 'Under Story'! From the New York Times bestselling and Goodreads Choice Award-nominated author of 'The Immortalists' comes an intimate yet epic love story and sweeping odyssey of scientific discovery. Add it to your Want to Read shelf at the link in our bio!⁠ ⁠ At the end of the earth, biologist Laurel Salter is hiding from everything she's ever known. For ten hours a day, six days per week, she works as a dishwasher at McMurdo Station, an isolated research base in Antarctica. She tells no one that before she arrived, she was a renowned young scientist with a promising career, a husband, and a family. But even in this remote outpost, Laurel can't outrun her past. When a strange light appears across the ice—and draws a group of physicists to McMurdo—her former husband, Eli, won't be far behind. Laurel is captivated by the Arc: its surreal glow, the way it seems almost alive. And though Eli is reluctant to test her wildest theory, Laurel is convinced that the Arc leads down a rabbit hole, and into a world they can barely imagine. Can she persuade him to risk everything to fix the burden that hangs between them—to turn back the clock and live their story a second time?⁠ ⁠ Available September 1, 2026⁠ Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons | @putnambooks ⁠ Cover design by Grace Han

Grateful to @thecreativeindependent for fostering a space for conversation between artists and to @denisesrobbins for these delightful, thought-provoking questions. We talk about process, finding balance, science-y fiction, Book 3 & more. Link in stories! 🌀

Process // THE IMMORTALISTS . I haven’t done a process post in a bit, and since I realized that most of the folks who follow me probably did so after #theimmortalists was published, I thought I’d share a peek. In unchronological order, since inspiration is a loop of past & present— 1: Sometime in 2017. Proofing typeset pages. 2: Dec 2005: Age 17 at my longtime ballet school in the Castro. I almost never plug anything from my life wholesale into a book but the ballet studio in Simon’s section is as close as it gets. This was probably taken on @martinahoshida ’s hot pink Motorola Razr. 3: Dec 2008. During my junior year of college, I interned at @zoetrope_mag . On my lunch break, I wandered through North Beach’s psychic shops and old, theatrical strip clubs, which years later became the backdrop for Klara‘a section. 4: The idea for the novel came to me relatively whole in 2013: four siblings go to see a fortuneteller whose prophecies dictate the rest of their lives. However, reading this article in 2012 planted the seed. 5: March 2016. For years, the jellyfish played a critical role—it’s what Varya was studying. It was devastating to admit that it wasn’t working, and what followed was some of the worst writers’ block of my career. This broke open with two ideas: the primates, and Luke. I rewrote Varya’s section in a matter of months, the fastest I’ve worked. My beloved agent @margaretrileyking saw me through this—and many other times when my faith flagged. 6: June 2016. The book had sold to @sallyjkim , a dream. This was her first editorial note. It still lives on my wall. 7: Jan 2017. So much of what happened for the novel is due to the passion of the team @putnambooks . Here was the first time we met in person. 8: June 2017. BEA madness! Sales rep/superhero @dschnoeb with one of the spectacular shirts Putnam made. 9: Jan 2018. On pub day, my publicist @katie_clay called to say that I’d be going on @sethmeyers . I’m embarrassed to say that I shouted an obscenity. Fun fact: Seth was an English major, and he reads all of the books featured on the show. This was filmed backstage by @nathanjandl . 10: Dec 2017. The first time I held the finished book.

Some Sunday WIPs. ☺️ Top to bottom: 🍋 The #sempersweatervneck by @the_knit_purl_girl . Such a thoughtful and thorough pattern—would be great for a first sweater. I’m making it with one strand of @isageryarn Tvinni and one strand of Alpaca 2, and the color!—I get a little bump of serotonin whenever I look at it. 🍧 A self-drafted mini scarf that I’m hoping to turn into a pattern! I had a vision for a triangle scarf with both stockinette and garter + picot edging. I also think it would be really fun to do in two colors—one for the body and one for the border. The yarn is @avfkw Nibble, which I adore, both because of its soft but organic texture and because it comes from sheep that ward off wildfires by nibbling (!) the hills of Santa Barbara. 🐻 The #elaracardigan by @em.knits_ , which I’m making in @hjelholtsuldspinderi Håndværksgarn. I searched for a while to find a cardigan that had cable details but also a fair amount of stockinette, and I love the way the cables begin at the saddle shoulders. . What’s on your needles this weekend?

I made a few videos for bookstores yesterday and I realized that it was the first time I saw these side by side! I feel a bit like a parent who can’t believe they’re a few months away from having three kids. So here they are: 🌚 THE ANATOMY OF DREAMS (2014, thus twelve years old) 🍓 THE IMMORTALISTS (2018, eight years old) 🍄 UNDER STORY (Coming Sept 1, -3.5 months old) ***Also I already had to go in and change one of their ages which just goes to show you that though I may be able to write three books, I barely escaped from high school math with a C/my dignity

✨GIVEAWAY✨ Win a proof copy of Under Story by @chloekbenjamin and a plantable bookmark! Once read, never forgotten, Under Story is a genre-defying exploration of the promise of this life, what might lie beyond it, and how far we would go for more time with the people we love. TO ENTER: 🧡 Like this post 🧡 Follow @headlinebooks , @tinder_press and @chloekbenjamin 🧡 Tag a friend you'd want to read this with T&Cs: Competition closes Thursday 21st May, 11:59pm. UK only, 18+. #UnderStory #ChloeBenjamin #NewFiction #bookgiveaway

New York! What a trip. There was rain, there were bagel STICKS (!?), and there were more #UnderStory galleys than I’ve ever seen in one place. Having 8 years between publications makes me savor these moments even more. . Best of all, after many moons in the writing cave, this is the period of time when I get to have colleagues. So much happiness to get the band back together: @putnambooks & @penguinrandomhouse (@lindsaysagnette @ivanheld1 @katie_clay @alexiswc @ash_mcclay @brennincummings @sl0poke @picklebandito and SO many more) & @wmebooks (@margaretrileyking who squeezed this in right before her daughter’s birthday plus an extra treat in @tfisherawesome & @haleyheidemann ). And an extra thank you to the media and book folks who took the time to hang with us this week. 🌸 I feel very conscious of my good fortune.

A week of UNDER STORY prepub fun in New York begins. 🍎 @putnambooks @penguinrandomhouse

We made a reel! It’s a drizzly afternoon at @ragdale_residency and I’m signing UNDER STORY tip-ins for my UK publisher, @headlinebooks & @tinder_press . These will become signed copies available at @waterstones and some independents too. ☺️🍄 . Okay, back to it…

She’s done! My #sweaterno23 came to London, Amsterdam, and Wales with me earlier this year, the color a reflection of their moody February skies. . I loved this pattern and can definitely see myself making another; the details are beautiful, like the back shoulder lines and folded collar, and the fit is excellent. The fabric is dreamy: @morehousefarm Merino, a buttery but natural, slightly thick-and thin yarn paired with @isageryarn Silk Mohair. (It’s the first time I’m using the latter and I fear it is worth the investment, especially if you’re sensitive to mohair.) . What’s on your needles these days? ➰

It’s my fifth (!) time at @ragdale_residency , an artist residency that has become one of my most beloved places. The best way I can describe being at Ragdale is that it feels like playing the 90s computer game MYST—that the landscape and its buildings are storied, beings themselves, and that beyond an innocuous door or down a prairie path or through an archway lies enchantment. We artists get to be part of it for a little while. No surprise that I wrote many sections of UNDER STORY here; I suspect that portals abound. . A residency is a huge gift: time and space to attend to your work in different ways than you can at home. It’s easy to feel pressure to earn that gift by producing as much and as quickly as possible. This morning the Ragdale staff reminded us that whatever we choose to do with this time is enough, and that rest is part of the process. Residency applications typically take place about a year in advance, and now that I’m here, I find myself at a funny place in my work: having recently finished a many-year project. UNDER STORY was thrilling to write, but also grueling, and only now—several months since I finished major edits—am I starting to get sparks: ideas, new sentences. . I’m trying not to push. It’s delicate at this stage. Today, while reacquainting myself with the landscape, the phrase that came to me was: “Walking with feeling is a form of working.” I don’t know what it is that I’m meant to learn at Ragdale this time, but I do know there’s something.

New desk friend. ☁️ ✨ And some prepublication thoughts… . It’s been 6.5 years since I started UNDER STORY, and there are 4.5 months until it publishes. I thought I’d be very nervy in this lead-up, and the jitters are certainly there, but I also feel more present and anchored in gratitude than I have in the past. While writing this book, I was finally recovering from many years of chronic pain. There isn’t a migraine in the novel, but that sense of healing & transformation is the under story of UNDER STORY. It’s part of the reason that it took so long to write—though the research & worldbuilding would have taken a pretty long time regardless!—and also part of the reason that I feel calmer going into this publication. . Experiencing something very difficult expands your perspective. I have a better sense of balance; I understand physically that success does not equal happiness. Waking up without pain is enough. And though ambition & perfectionism will probably always be in me, I think they’ve become two threads among many. So much of UNDER STORY, and of my life in the recent years, has been about learning to put process over outcome. So rather than rushing through this pre-publication period, I’m trying to pull my mind back from the future—back from pub date—and into the present, to enjoy the unfolding.