About
Chelse Russell Barker Benham
Chelse Russell-Benham Author
I live in Texas with my husband, two rescue dogs, and one Brazilian red-footed tortoise. My two children have flown the nest and landed successfully in the world.
I spend my time writing, reading voraciously, and keeping my body and hands engaged—playing table tennis, inline skating, creating art, and tending to my small citrus grove. I believe creative work is sustained not only by discipline, but by curiosity, physicality, and attention to the interior world. |
I’ve spent my career telling stories — through film, through media, and now through fiction. But the stories that linger with me most are the quiet ones: the moments inside relationships when something shifts, fractures, or finally comes into focus.
I am drawn to the quiet fault lines inside families and friendships — the unspoken loyalties, the power shifts, the secrets kept for love that eventually erode it. Annette and Olivette grew from my fascination with how women inherit silence: how mothers and daughters misunderstand each other, how marriages calcify around old wounds, and how identity can slowly disappear inside roles we once chose willingly. My debut novel, Annette and Olivette, is the first in a planned trilogy. It examines motherhood, identity, and the inheritance of silence across generations of women. Set between Austin, Santa Fe, and the backroads of New Mexico, the novel blends psychological intimacy with dark humor and a cinematic sense of place. This story asks difficult questions about accountability, perception, and emotional legacy. It explores what happens when a woman realizes she may not be the victim she believed herself to be — and that reclaiming her voice requires facing the parts of herself she’d rather not see. At its core, this is a story about visibility: what it means to be seen, erased, and — ultimately — to see clearly. I'm drawn to essential issues of:
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