FRED ROSEN

I love writing narrative non-fiction. True crime and history have been my metier. I became a writer on a warm, bright fall night at about one in the morning at USC's film school. I was studying for my Master of Fine Arts when my editing teacher, Ken Robinson, said, "You're a writer aren't you?" He was challenging me on something I had written. And from that moment, I knew that I was one. Earlier in my career, under the name "Frederic W. Rosen," I was the Camera columnist for The New York Times. Later, I was a journalism professor at Hofstra University and most recently a film professor at the New York Institute of Technology. I eventually was offered the opportunity to write a true crime book and ran with it. Bat Masterson, The First Dreamer, Lobster Boy and The Bayou Strangler are among the 25 books I have written and published. I get involved with the cases and people I write about. It's the only way I know.