On Taking Two Years to Write an Article

Or more than two years

And when I read, I want to be in relation with a human being. That’s why I read. Likewise, a machine instructed to make love to me might technically be excellent at making love to me, but that won’t do either. – Zadie Smith

I got the idea for the article while I was driving around rural Arkansas in 2023. There is something to be said for wandering whether in body or mind.

I pitched the idea to an editor the summer of 2025. At the same time, I applied for a grant for the project and a residency. I signed the contract for the article in November, and in December I got word of the funding and the residency.

I spent the spring of 2026 reporting the article with a photographer. I didn’t feel in any way done with the reporting, but I went off to the residency for a month.

Then I started a new job as an investigative journalist in Arizona, and I had to drive from Little Rock to Phoenix. I installed myself in the desert. It was hard for me to finish the draft. Even though I probably only needed two days of clear thinking, I just couldn’t get it together.

So I wallowed and felt terrible about myself for a few months. And then I turned in a draft in September 2025. I didn’t hear back from my editor for months, which made me imagine 77 types of disaster.

In December, the editor wrote me. He did not send me edits but attached a note about my article. The note is the closest reading of my work that exists on this earth, the kind of note editors don’t send anymore. I keep thinking I should frame it.

I told the editor I would get a revised draft back to him in a month. Four months later, with a pep talk from a friend, I convinced myself to finish the draft.

I sent it to the editor in May 2026. In June, he said it might be published by October.

To those wildly and frustratingly human processes,

Alice

News and Events:

I interviewed legendary labor rights activist Dolores Huerta for the summer print edition of Elle Magazine. In September, I will be in Italy for the Italian translation of Life and Death of the American Worker. And in October, I will attend one of my favorite gatherings of journalists from around the globe at the Congress of Mérida Migration Journalism: Migrant Children and Youth in Mérida, Spain.

You can order LIFE AND DEATH OF THE AMERICAN WORKER: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company HERE.

An extraordinary feat of reporting—a gripping investigation into the brutal, often life-threatening conditions faced by America’s most vulnerable workers. It’s hard to imagine a more urgent or timely book, one written with rigor, deep compassion, and moral clarity. A vital, infuriating book - an absolute must-read.

—BRIAN GOLDSTONE, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of There Is No Place For Us