About the Author 
R. D. Rosen’s career as a writer, editor, producer, and performer spans several media and genres, but he feels sure that nothing he ever does will eclipse in influence what he did in nine seconds in 1975 : he invented the word "psychobabble."
He was born in Chicago, raised in Highland Park, Illinois, and educated at Harvard, where he was the recipient of the 1971 Academy of American Poets Award. He published his first book, a collection of essays, while still an undergraduate, then turned to writing and editing in Boston's bustling counter-cultural journalistic community, first as a feature writer, arts editor, book columnist, and restaurant reviewer for The Boston Phoenix. Lured by good friend Paul Solman to WGBH-TV's "Ten O'Clock News," his offbeat feature stories turned into a 1983 PBS comedy special, "The Generic News" (written by Rosen with Steve Atlas), in which he played all the members of a fictitious local newscast.
By this time, Rosen had tried his hand at mystery novel writing and his first effort, Strike Three You're Dead, starring major league outfielder-turned-detective Harvey Blissberg, won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel in 1985, and was followed by four other Blissberg mysteries.
Between mysteries, Rosen continued to work in television, as a writer for "Saturday Night Live" (a tenure so short-lived as to now be invisible, although very occasional residual checks attest to its reality), and as a satirical correspondent for HBO's "Not Necessarily The News" and the PBS magazine show "Edge." He was also a producer and writer for the CBS-TV News Division for several years and was a senior editor at Workman Publishing in New York, where he created and coauthored the bestselling series of humor books that contains Bad Cat, Bad Dog, Bad Baby, and Bad President.
Rosen lives in New York City, has two daughters, and is married to film casting director Ellen Lewis.