Editing

People often say that an editor is your first reader. Which is funny, if you think about it, since a writer has almost certainly read and reread their work a good deal before submitting it for editing. But as a writer, I know that when I’m deep in my work, I sometimes worry that what I’m doing will make no sense to anyone but me. As an editor, I’m here to make sure that you do. I’m less interested in enforcing a set of arbitrary rules than in trying to read for everyone else. My responsibility is to help the writer anticipate the needs, questions, and objections that might be raised by other readers before you hit send.

As with writing, my work as an editor started with my work as an educator. It seemed to me that students treated essays and papers as private exchanges with me. I wanted them to understand that they were practicing for a wider audience—other students, employers, clients, customers, friends, and fellow citizens. Just as importantly, I wanted them to know that what they had to say might be useful to the people who read their work. But before a writer does that, it’s good to have a set of sharp and thoughtful eyes look at what you’re doing and give you feedback.

I work with writers at four stages in the writing process:

Coaching: Whether they’re tackling a book, a dissertation, or an article, I can help break down the work into doable tasks, offer advice on pacing and organization, and hold writers gently accountable for getting the project done.

Developmental Editing: You have a draft. Now what? As a developmental editor, I help authors ask what’s there, what’s missing, and whether things are where they belong. More than anything, I help them anticipate the readers’ responses, making sure that what’s on the page will keep them engaged and reading from beginning to end.

Copy Editing: The final draft is ready, and now it’s time to clean up the text. As a copy editor, I work through your manuscript, identifying mistakes in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. At the same time, I’m remembering what I’ve already read, keeping an eye out for the sort of repetitions, contradictions, and factual errors that weigh on the reader’s experience. As a copy editor, I’m the author’s confidante, confessor, and fixer.

Proofreading: A writer wants their readers focused on the writing, undistracted by typos and glitches. This is the final check before publication, the dusting off of the jacket, the straightening of the skirt, that allows the author to release the work into the world with perfect confidence.

Interested in working with me? Contact me for a free consultation.

A rare shot of me in a state of relaxed concentration

Co-editor and contributor

Queer Christianities: Lived Religion in Transgressive Forms, with Kathy Talvacchia and Mark Larrimore (New York University Press, 2015).

Developmental Editor

As the River Flows, Jim J. Jones, author, Lawrence Pitre, illustrator (Seeds of History, 2023).

“[Michael] was instrumental in helping me take a string of events and shape them into a cohesive and coherent work.  Not only was he able to improve the quality of writing with his suggestions and edits, but he also helped make the work more dynamic.”

Jim J. Jones
Author, As the River Flows

“Meeting a meticulous editor like Dr. Pettinger is a blessing for a person like me who speaks and writes English as a second language.”

Keun-joo Christine Pae
Associate Professor of Religion, Denison University
Author, A Transpacific Imagination of Theology,
Ethics, and Spiritual Activism

Copy/Line editor

Embodying Antiracist Christianity: Asian American Theological Resources for Just Racial Relations, Keun-Joo Christine Pae and Boyung Lee, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

Coordinating Editor

Conversations About Being a Coach, J. Victor McGuire. (Coaching for Everyone, 2023).

PRoofreading For FOrdham UNiversity Press

Proofreading, Alas, doesn’t permit me to work directly with the author. BUt there’s real pleasure in getting to read their work while doing the last bit of work on them…

Movement: New York City’s Long Battle to Take Back Its Streets from the Car, Nicole Gelinas, 2024.

Just City: Growing Up on the Upper West Side When Housing Was a Human Right, Jennifer Baum, 2024.

A Ministry of Risk: Writings on Peace and Nonviolence, Philip Berrigan, edited and with an introduction by Brad Wolf, 2024.

Join the Conspiracy: How a Brooklyn Eccentric Got Lost on the Right, Infiltrated the Left, and Brought Down the Biggest Bombing Network in New York, Jonathan Butler, 2024.

Disorderly Men, Edward Cahill, 2024.

Mortimer and the Witches: A History of Nineteenth-Century Fortune Tellers, Marie Carter, 2024.

Shadows of Nagasaki: Trauma  Religion and Memory after the Atomic Bombing, Chad R. Diehl, editor, 2024.

Æffect: The Affect and Effect of Artistic Activism, Stephen Duncombe, 2024.

Incarnating Grace: A Theology of Healing from Sexual Trauma, Julia Feder, 2024.

Monsoon Marketplace: Capitalism, Media, and Modernity in Manila and Singapore, Elmo Gonzaga, 2024.

Finding God in a World Come of Age: Karl Rahner and Johann Baptist Metz, edited and with commentary by Roger Haight, SJ; Alfred Pach III; and Amanda Avila Kaminski, 2024.

Global Queens: An Urban Mosaic, Joseph Heathcott, 2024.

Latinx Revolutionary Horizons: Form and Futurity in the Americas, Renee Hudson, 2024.

Queer Callings: Untimely Notes on Names and Desires, Mark D. Jordan, 2024.

Flannery O’Connor’s Manhattan, Katheryn Krotzer Laborde , 2024.

A Philosophy of Prayer: Nothingness, Language, and Hope, George Pattison, 2024.

Indifference and Repetition; or  Modern Freedom and Its Discontents, Frank Ruda, translated by Heather H. Yeung, 2024.

Family War Stories: The Densmores’ Fight to Save the Union and Destroy Slavery, Keith P. Wilson, 2024.

Recovering Their Stories: US Catholic Women in the Twentieth Century, Sandra Yocum and Nicholas Rademacher, 2024.

The Livable and the Unlivable: A Conversation Initiated by Arto Charpentier and Laure Barillas, Judith Butler and Frédéric Worms,  translated by Zakiya Hanafi 2023.

Caged: A Teacher’s Journey Through Rikers or How I Beheaded the Minotaur Brandon Dean Lamson, 2023.

The Mother, the Politician, and the Gorilla: Women’s Political Imagination in the Kurdish Movement, Nazan Üstündağ, 2023.

Tempus: The World of Discussion and the World of Narration, Harald Weinrich, translated by Jane K. Brown and Marshall Brown, 2023.

Gothic Things: Dark Enchantment and Anthropocene Anxiety, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, 2023.

Heaven on the Hudson: Mansions, Monuments and Marvels of Riverside Park, Stephanie Azzarone, 2022.

The Book of Tiny Prayer: Daily Meditations from the Plague Year, Micah Bucey, 2022.

NBC Goes to War: The Diary of Radio Correspondent James Cassidy from London to the Bulge, James Cassidy, edited by Michael S. Sweeney, 2022.

The Beauty of the Trinity: A Reading of the Summa Halensis, Justin Shaun Coyle, 2022.

Vertigo: The Temptation of Identity, Andrea Cavalletti, translated by Max Matukhin, forward by Daniel Heller-Roazen, 2022.

Being of Two Minds: Modernist Literary Criticism and Early Modern Texts, Jonathan Goldberg, 2022.

Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures, Andrew Dana Hudson, 2022

Spirit Power: Politics and Religion in Korea’s American Century, Heonik Kwon and Jun Hwan Park, 2022.

Reconstruction and Empire: The Legacies of Abolition and Union Victory for an Imperial Age, David Prior, editor, 2022.

Africans in Harlem: An Untold New York Story, Boukary Sawadogo, 2022.

Techno-Magism: Media, Mediation, and the Cut of Romanticism, Orrin N.C. Wang, 2022.

Grammatology of Images: A History of the A-Visible, Sigrid Weigel, translated by Chadwick Truscott Smith, 2022.

Stroke Book: The Diary of a Blind Spot, Jonathan Alexander, 2021.

Homo Psyche: On Queer Theory and Erotophobia, Gila Ashtor, 2021.

Missions Begin with Blood: Suffering and Salvation in the Borderlands of New Spain, Brandon L. Bayne, 2021.

Just Universities: Catholic Social Teaching Confronts Corporatized Higher Education, Gerald J. Beyer, 2021.

Palisades: The People’s Park, Robert O. Binnewies, 2021.

Sunnyside Gardens: Planning and Preservation in a Historic Garden Suburb, Jeffrey A. Kroessler, architectural renderings and plans by Laura Heim, 2021.

Between Form and Faith: Graham Greene and the Catholic Novel, Martyn Sampson, 2021.

Crossing Back: Books, Family, and Memory Without Pain, Marianna De Marco Torgovnick, 2021.