Background

Shira Judith Rozan was born in 1950 in the Bronx, New York City, New York, United States. She grew up with two sisters and a brother.

Education

Shira Rozan attended Oberlin College and the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Career

Before becoming an architect, Rozan worked as a janitor, in jewelry sales, painting houses, book sales, bread baking, as an advertising copywriter and as a self-defense instructor.

Later, working for over a decade for the New York firm of Stein, White, Nelligan Architects, she focused on designs for public projects, such as zoos, firehouses and police stations. She enjoyed the work, but realized something was missing in her life. Taking a fiction-writing course, she was discouraged by early attempts at writing novels, so she turned to the short-story form. When her first story was sold to P.I. Magazine, Rozan thought she was on her way. Then came three unpublished novels, but her agent stuck with her, believing in the work. Finally, in 1994, the first title of her "Chin/Smith" series saw publication. The story introduces private investigator, Lydia Chin, a single woman, who lives in New York City and occasionally works with partner Bill Smith, who is also her sometime romantic interest. The reader meets Lydia's family: a mother, who harps on the subject of her daughter, finding a Chinese husband, and a brother, Tim, who involves Linda in a robbery case, concerning a collection of rare porcelains.

In Concourse, Rozan returns to the scene, set in China Trade, but she gives Bill Smith the role of narrator. He and Chin are involved in a murder investigation at the Bronx Home for the Aged. After the Chin-Smith team is hired to recover a fashion designer's stolen sketches for a critical first collection in Mandarin Plaid, they appear again in No Colder Place. This novel is set in familiar territory by the author/architect, taking Chin and Smith into events, surrounding the construction of a Manhattan apartment building.

Rozan continued the "Lydia Chin/Bill Smith" series with A Bitter Feast, Stone Quarry, On the Line, Ghost Hero, Paper Son and others.

Rozan's 2001 novel, Reflecting the Sky, also continued the series. Here, Chin and Smith are sent to Hong Kong to deliver the ashes of a family friend and a jade amulet to surviving relatives. They soon find themselves immersed in a kidnapping and the Chinese underworld of the Triads.

By 2004, the popularity of the "Lydia Chin/Bill Smith" series had allowed Rozan to quit her day job as an architect and concentrate full time on writing. In 2013, she co-authored the book, titled Blood of the Lamb, with Carlos Dews under the name Sam Cabot. All in all, Rozan authored sixteen novels and six dozen short stories.

Rozan also lectures and teaches widely. In January 2003, she was invited as a speaker at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland; in 2006, as a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts; in 2009, at the National Book Festival. In October 2009, Shira spoke about "Every Story is a Mystery" at the Central Library in Indianapolis. She also was a keynote speaker at the California Crime Writers Conference, an instructor at the New York Crime Fiction Academy, a Writer-in-Residence at Singapore Management University and an Author-in-Residence & Guest Instructor at 2014 Novel-In-Progress Bookcamp.

Achievements

• 

  S. J. Rozan is only the second woman to win the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. She has also captured the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, as well as many other top crime-writing awards, for her series about the New York-based private eye team of Lydia Chin and Bill Smith. Rozan is also the recipient of the Japanese Maltese Falcon Award. She recently received the Life Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Her short story anthology, Bronx Noir, was chosen NAIBA "Notable Book of the Year." The popularity of Rozan's fiction has led to the translation of her work into Japanese, Dutch, Italian and Bulgarian.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Skin of the Wolf

    (Months after Father Thomas Kelly, art historian Livia Pie...)

    2014
  • Reflecting the Sky

    (Chinese-American detective Lydia Chin and her partner Bil...)

    2001
  • Absent Friends

    (Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of Septemb...)

    2004
  • Stone Quarry

    (Traveling upstate to recover stolen paintings for a reclu...)

    1999
  • On the Line

    (Bill Smith is sent on a high stakes chase, when an electr...)

    2010
  • Paper Son

    (The latest Lydia Chin/Bill Smith mystery takes the acclai...)

    2019
  • The Art of Violence

    (Former client, Sam Tabor, just out of Greenhaven after a ...)

    2020
  • In This Rain

    (Three years ago, a child's death blew open a vortex of co...)

    2006
  • No Colder Place

    (The fourth book in the series, No Colder Place is set in ...)

    1997
  • Winter and Night

    (In the middle of the night, private investigator Bill Smi...)

    2002
  • A Bitter Feast

    (It's Lydia Chin's turn to go underground as the Chinese-A...)

    1998
  • Mandarin Plaid

    (A PI novel, set in the world of fashion, narrated by Lydi...)

    1996
  • China Trade

    (The first Lydia Chin/Bill Smith book, narrated by Lydia C...)

    1994
  • Blood of the Lamb: A Novel of Secrets

    (Father Thomas Kelly has been called to the Vatican. A Car...)

    2013
  • Concourse

    (The second Bill Smith/Lydia Chin novel. Narrated by Bill ...)

    1995
  • The Shanghai Moon

    (Estranged for months from fellow P.I. Bill Smith, Chinese...)

    2009
  • Ghost Hero

    (American-Born Chinese P.I. Lydia Chin is called in on wha...)

    2011

Membership

Shira Judith Rozan is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Private Eye Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the International Association of Crime Writers and the American Institute of Architects.

Interests

• reading

• Sport & Clubs

  New York Knicks; basketball, walking

Connections

colleague:

Carlos Dews

Friend:

William Krueger