Daniel Allen Cox (born February 3, 1976) is a Canadian author and columnist. Shuck, his semi-autobiographical debut novel about a New York City hustler, was a Lambda Literary Award and a ReLit Award finalist. Cox is described in interviews as a former Jehovah's Witness and model/actor in gay pornography, and his writing style has drawn comparisons to American authors Dennis Cooper and Chuck Palahniuk.[1][2] In 2010, AfterElton.com named Cox one of its "Favorite Gay Canucks." [3] He writes the column Fingerprinted for Xtra Ottawa, formerly known as Capital Xtra![4]
Krakow Melt the second novel by Cox published by Arsenal Pulp Press, about Polish pyromaniacs who fight homophobia, was released in 2010 and was excerpted the US-based national gay and lesbian newsmagazine The Advocate.[5] In 2011, Istanbul-based publisher Altikirkbes acquired Turkish-language rights to the novel for an underground literature imprint featuring Lydia Lunch.[6] The novel was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Fiction.
Cox has appeared at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival, Ottawa International Writers' Festival, Northeastern Illinois University, Columbia College Chicago,[7] McGill University,[8] Wilfrid Laurier University's Rainbow Centre, the San Francisco Sex Worker Arts Festival,[9] WESTFEST, GritLit, AIDS Committee of Ottawa, and CBC Radio One.[10][11] He is a former fiction editor of Outsider Ink, and his own fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. He is openly gay.[12]
Tattoo This Madness In, his novella about LGBT Jehovah’s Witnesses who use Smurf tattoos to rebel against their faith, was nominated for a 2007 Expozine Alternative Press Award.[13][14]