William Rabkin photo

William Rabkin

William Rabkin is a two-time Edgar Award nominee who writes the Psych series of novels and is the author of Writing the Pilot. He has consulted for studios in Canada, Germany, and Spain on television series production and teaches screenwriting at UCLA Extension and as an adjunct professor in UC Riverside's low-residency masters program.

William Rabkin has written and/or produced more than 300 hours of dramatic television. He served as showrunner on the long-running Dick Van Dyke mystery series “Diagnosis Murder” and on the action-adventure spectacle “Martial Law.” His many writing and producing credits include “The Glades,” “Monk,” “Psych, “Nero Wolfe,” “Missing,” “Spenser: For Hire,” “seaQuest 2032,” “Hunter” and “The Cosby Mysteries”. He has also written a dozen network TV pilots. His work has been nominated twice for the Edgar Award for best television episode by the Mystery Writers of America.

He has published two books on writing for television, Successful Television Writing (2003), with Lee Goldberg and Writing The Pilot (2011) and five novels. He is the co-creator and co-editor of “The Dead Man,” a monthly series of supernatural action thrillers published by Amazon’s 47North imprint.

Rabkin, adjunct assistant professor of screen and television writing at the University of California, Riverside-Palm Desert’s Low Residency MFA In Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts, has lectured on television writing and production to writers, producers, and executives in Spain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands and Brazil. He also currently teaches “Beginning Television Writing” and “Advanced Television Rewriting Workshop” for Screenwriters University.


“This is not a Scooby-Doo episode, Gus said.Granted, our current adventure may lack the mastery and grace of classic stories like 'Hassle in the Castle' or 'Foul Play in Funland', Shawn said. But as I've always said, aim high.”
William Rabkin
Read more
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Shawn said.“It’s not ironic at all,” Gus said.“Dude, it’s so like a black fly in your chardonnay.”“How many times do I have to tell you that’s not ironic, either?”“Rain on your wedding day?”“‘Irony’ is the use of words to convey a meaning that’s opposite to their literal meaning,” Gus said. “That stupid song came out fourteen years ago, and we still have this exact conversation at least once a week.”“Yeah,” Shawn said. “Ironic, isn’t it?”
William Rabkin
Read more
“Hugh, I remind you that you are still under the oath the last guy swore," Shawn said. "Is that real?" Ralston said.”
William Rabkin
Read more