A cozy Late Night Library interview with Dinah Cox offers fascinating new insights into the author's writing process, specifically regarding her BOA Short Fiction Prize-winning collection Remarkable.

Noting the diversity among the collection's stories, interviewer Corinne Gould asks: "All the stories are set in Oklahoma and the surrounding areas. Were there any themes that you set out to focus on?"

Cox replies: "I find myself returning to lonely characters, occasionally settings that mirror that loneliness, and characters in possession of a healthy sense of the absurd. I wrote these stories over a number of years—some of them a long time ago, some of them only recently—and I put them together with brevity in mind. I wanted to include only (or mostly) stories that had been previously published in magazines, and I remember thinking the editors at BOA like short-shorts and so wanting to include what I thought were my best short-shorts prominently, and I remember, too, hoping to emphasize first-person narrators, the desperation of Oklahoma, and an overall sense of 'many voices from the plains, some of them gay.'"

Lambda Literary is also giving Remarkable glowing attention in a new review. July Westhale says: "Many of my favorite pieces of writing are about landscape and place where landscape and place must become character in and of themselves—there is nothing else to rely upon. . . . Dinah Cox’s Remarkable does this beautifully. Set in Oklahoma (with ever-present reminders of Oklahoma and the characters’ indifference or desires to leave or stay there), the stories in this collection are sharp, precise, and surprising. . . . Cox writes thoughtfully and carefully, showcasing her deftness with language and nuance, and the multidimensional nature of her ordinary characters."

Click here to read the full Late Night Library interview with Dinah Cox.

Click here to read the full Lambda Literary review.

Remarkable is available for purchase at the BOA Bookstore.