Rozan S. J.

S. J. Rozan is an American architect and writer of detective fiction and thrillers, based in New York City. She also co-writes a paranormal thriller series under the pseudonym Sam Cabot with Carlos Dews.[1]

S.J. (Shira Judith) Rozan was born in 1950 in the Bronx, New York. She grew up with two sisters and a brother, and has a passion for basketball. She graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's degree, and received a master's in architecture from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is a lifelong New Yorker and currently lives in Lower Manhattan.[2][3][4][5]

Before her career as an architect, Rozan also worked as a janitor, in jewelry sales, painting houses, book sales, bread baking, as an advertising copywriter, and as a self-defense instructor.[6] As an architect, she became project manager for a New York firm[7] working on socially useful projects. She said, "That life was exactly what I wanted, but it wasn't making me happy.... So I decided to go back to this idea I'd had of writing a crime novel."[8]

Rozan's books are set in New York City or start out there. Her P.I. series features Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, and the books alternate point of view between the two characters.[9] About them she has revealed, "Lydia is me as I was when I was her age. She’s optimistic and full of energy. She believes that the world can be saved.... Bill, on the other hand, is me as I am now—on a bad day. He’s been through enough bad stuff in his life that he knows what can’t be done."[10]

In 2013 she co-authored a book with Carlos Dews under the name Sam Cabot. This book was set in Rome and is the first in a series of historical thrillers.[11] In addition to crime novels, since 2004, Rozan has written haiku that she posts each weekend to her blog. They are composed as she makes observations, but aren't written down until she gets home.[12]

Rozan speaks, lectures, and teaches widely, including in January 2003 as an invited speaker at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland;[13] as a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Fall 2006;[14] at the 2009 National Book Festival;[13] speaking about "Every Story Is a Mystery" at the Central Library in Indianapolis in October 2009;[15] as keynote speaker at the California Crime Writers Conference in June 2011;[16] in Fall 2011 as an instructor at the New York Crime Fiction Academy;[17] as a Writer-in-Residence at Singapore Management University in February 2014;[18] as Author-in-Residence & Guest Instructor at 2014 Novel-In-Progress Bookcamp;[19] and during summers in Assisi, Italy at Art Workshop International as a Writing Instructor.[20] She gives freely of her time to other writers as shown by acknowledgments in, among others, the following referenced books:[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]