Bright Shiny Broken Parts, Magpie, Oh My!

Comparison:

My cover story in the September issue of [The Atlantic] is the product of many months of obsessive labor—without careful assembly, the thing would have been an unholy mess, a magpie’s nest of broken parts.

Pulitzer-winning author Jennifer Senior needed to capture the essence of what non-careful assemble, after months of research and writing labor, would have been in a long-form article treating a difficult, challenging topic.

Context:

But 13,500-word stories don’t just require time to read; they require time to write. My cover story in the September issue of [The Atlantic] is the product of many months of obsessive labor—without careful assembly, the thing would have been an unholy mess, a magpie’s nest of broken parts.

Citation:

Senior, Jennifer. “Dear Reader e-note to The Atlantic readers.” Header: "My specialty is long-form writing, the slow food of publishing," email, 13 Sept. 2023.

(Magpie nest image courtesy of Microsoft Bing Image Creator, Sept. 2023)