Adam M. Rosen is a nonfiction editor and freelance writer in Asheville, North Carolina.

Short bio: I’ve been working on the editorial side of print and digital publishing since 2008. I spend most of my time editing nonfiction books and articles and the rest of it writing articles and essays for print and online publications. (I also ghostwrite nonfiction books, book proposals, and blogs.) In October 2022, an essay collection about the cult film The Room I edited and contributed to was published by Indiana University Press. Since 2016, when I started freelancing, I’ve edited more than 50 books.

Extended bio: Before I became a full-time freelancer I was an editor and course designer at Soomo Learning, an online academic publisher in Asheville. From 2012 to August 2016, I created and managed interactive digital anthologies in world literature and international development. I was previously an associate editor at Oxford University Press in New York City, where I helped manage three of OUP’s flagship online references: Oxford Biblical Studies Online, Oxford Islamic Studies Online, and the Oxford African American Studies Center, a collaboration with Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute. Before that, I was an editorial assistant at the Collins nonfiction imprint at HarperCollins, and before that, an intern/lackey at the Onion. I also worked in real news, as a reporting intern at the Baltimore Sun.

As a freelancer I’ve worked on a wide variety of nonfiction book projects, as well as articles and essays. In 2021, one of the books I edited, To be Honest: Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose by Ron Carucci (Kogan Page), was named one of Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2021. In 2024, another title, Leaders Leap: Transforming Your Company at the Speed of Disruption by Steve Dennis (Wonderwell), earned a starred review in Library Journal. Other books I’ve edited have received reviews in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus.

To learn about the services I offer through my company, AMR Editorial, and how I might help you with your editorial project, please check out the Editing Services section of this site.

I also moonlight as a journalist and essayist. I’ve contributed to the Wall Street Journal, TheAtlantic.com, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Wilson Quarterly, Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, the Awl, Literary Hub, JSTOR Daily, Tablet Magazine, the Baltimore Sun, Mountain Xpress (Asheville’s alt-weekly), Michigan Alumnus, the Forward, the Onion, OUPblog, the Brooklyn Paper, Gelf Magazine, the Billfold and many other print and online outlets. In 2020 and 2021 I authored a three-part series on farming in Appalachia for 100 Days in Appalachia, a news nonprofit established by West Virginia Public Radio and West Virginia University. (Check out the Writing Portfolio section for links to some of my clips.)

The main focus of my writing is popular literature, language, music, TV/film, Jewish-American culture, and the outdoors. (A bit of a mix there, I know.) I confess I have an academic bent, and I enjoy doing research and synthesizing scholarship almost as much as writing. For one of my articles I interviewed a professor who watched the entire Real Housewives franchise—for science.

I grew up just outside Baltimore and attended the University of Michigan, where I studied political science and wrote for the student paper, the Michigan Daily. After graduating I spent a year in Argentina teaching English, sampling empanadas, and studying Spanish. After returning to the U.S. I completed the Columbia Publishing Course, a six-week immersion in book and magazine publishing overseen by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

I’m a member of the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA), and from 2019 to 2021 I served as a judge for the Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE) Book Awards in the category of nonfiction.

Outside of books and writing I’m a bit of an urban planning and surface transit nerd. I’m the president of Connect Buncombe, a nonprofit advocating for greenways in my county, and I’m a member of the WNC Rail Committee, an organization lobbying for passenger rail service in the Western North Carolina region. I am also a Capricorn.

Contact me at hello@adammrosen.com or through the form below.