Miranda Ottewell is the best copyeditor I’ve ever worked with. I have about twenty-five book publishers and have written for more than a dozen magazines, and my experience has been that copyeditors usually introduce errors, don’t understand grammar or style as well as I do, make challenges based on their own ideas, beliefs, and feelings, and generally just cause a lot of extra work and frustration for me. But Miranda has none of these flaws. She’s a dream to work with because she finds real problems, issues that need to be dealt with, and otherwise has a light touch, not introducing any new problems. She manages to go over a book diligently but also respectfully. I feel very lucky to have had her eye on three of my novels now, and in fact, the last one, Goat Mountain, was going to be copyedited by the UK publisher (Heinemann/Random House) instead of the US one (HarperCollins), but I asked to go through the process with HarperCollins because I wanted Miranda’s careful look. I didn’t feel comfortable going to press without her, and I hope she’ll continue with all my future books. I certainly give her my highest recommendation. I don’t think you can find anyone better.
—David Vann, critically acclaimed author of Legend of a Suicide,
Caribou Island, Dirt, and Goat Mountain, with books on seventy
Best Books of the Year lists in a dozen countries
I was lucky enough to have Miranda Ottewell as the copy editor on my novel Buried on Avenue B. Her skill, integrity, and fastidiousness saved me from dozens of embarrassments in all shapes and sizes. More importantly, she spared my readers, because nothing undermines fiction, particularly crime fiction, faster than factual errors and inconsistencies. I can’t recommend her services enough and will seek them out on future projects.
—Peter de Jonge, coauthor with James Patterson of three
New York Times best sellers and crime novelist in his own right,
“in the noirish, character-driven vein of Dennis Lehane
or Michael Connelly” (New York Times)
Miranda Ottewell’s excellence as a copy editor saved me from numerous errors.
—Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Dallek, in the acknowledgments for
The Lost Peace: Leadership in a Time of Horror and Hope, 1945–1953
Miranda’s copy editing job on my debut novel Little Known Facts for Bloomsbury USA and Bloomsbury Circus UK was so thorough and meticulous that I knew the book was in good hands from the moment I started reading through her edits. Eventually, Little Known Facts ended up on the cover of the February 24, 2013, edition of the New York Times Book Review, due in part, I’m sure, to Miranda’s expert editing.
—Christine Sneed, novelist and short story writer
Miranda’s astute editing made Spider Woman’s Daughter: A Leaphorn and Chee Novel much stronger. Not only did she find those annoying grammatical errors and mistakes that writers like me can’t see on their own, but she went beyond my expectations in researching Navajo star lore to make sure I had my facts straight.
—Anne Hillerman, author of Spider Woman’s Daughter: A Leaphorn and Chee Novel