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This week’s Longreads Member Exclusive comes from Margot Singer, whose essay “Call It Rape” was published in the Fall 2012 issue of The Normal School.  Jeffery Gleaves, an editorial assistant for the magazine, writes: 

“Located at California State University at Fresno, The Normal School is a biannual magazine of literary intrigue that is distributed throughout the U.S. and Canada. Through etymological and personal history, Margot Singer’s ‘Call it Rape’ examines the very complicated position of living in a world where gender power dynamics seem to pervade every part of our lives. The essay seems to tangle, more than untangle, sex and violence. It messes with your head and leaves you feeling something real, something complicated and messy. Good essays are fueled by the contradictions of everyday living; and essays like ‘Call it Rape’ threaten to stick with you and unsettle you, to keep you awake at night.”

Singer is the author of The Pale of Settlement (University of Georgia Press, 2007), winner of the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction. Her essays and stories have appeared in The Kenyon Review, Conjunctions, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. She is an Associate Professor at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where she directs the Creative Writing program.