The Paper Anniversary, by Dinah Cox

Publication date: January 1, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-9324-1883-5
$19

Fiction. The Paper Annivesary by Dinah Cox won the 2023 Elixir Press Fiction Award. Contest judge, Anthony Varallo praises the book: "These stories leap off the page with so much energy and wit; there's life in every paragraph, every sentence. Dinah Cox seems to know the state of Oklahoma for all its contradictions, myths, and manners, and can skewer that world from an insider's vantage. Cox is a humorist of the first rank, one who seems aware that the prerequisite of great satire is to love the thing you are satirizing. I want everyone to read this book!"

"Dinah Cox's story collection The Paper Anniversary marries the various worlds of Oklahoma with the humor of the darkly absurd. Her characters crave connection, want to be seen, but there is always an obstacle, and it is most often themselves. Cox is my favorite kind of writer—voice-y and compassionate, always humorous, at times sad, often (enough) hopeful. The Paper Anniversary is a funny, sad, funnily sad, sadly funny, compelling set of stories." —Lori Ostlund

Dinah Cox is the author of two previous short story collections, Remarkable (2019), from BOA Editions, and The Canary Keeper (2019), from [PANK] Books. She lives and works in her hometown of Stillwater, Oklahoma.