Mary Rosenblum was born on June 27, 1952 in Levittown, NY, and graduated from Reed College. She was a United States medical researcher and author who wrote science fiction and mystery novels. She published works under both Mary Rosenblum and her birth name, Mary Freeman.

Mary Rosenblum's first novel, The Drylands (1993), won the 1994 Compton Crook Award, given by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society for the best English-language first novel in the field of science fiction, fantasy, or horror. Her other volumes of science fiction include the novels Chimera (1993), The Stone Garden (1994), and Horizons (2006), and the collections Synthesis and Other Virtual Realities (1996) and Water Rites (2007). This last volume collects several works in the Drylands series, which explores unrest brought about by drought and climate change.

Rosenblum's short fiction appeared in Asimov's, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and other periodicals and anthologies. Rosenblum was a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for "One Good Juror" (1997), a story she co-authored with James Sarafin, and a finalist for the 1998 Tiptree Award (now known as the Otherwise Award) and a 2008 Nebula Award. She won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for her 2008 novelette "Sacrifice."

Rosenblum's gardening mysteries, published under the name Mary Freeman, include the novels Devil's Trumpet (1999), Deadly Nightshade (1999), Bleeding Heart (2000), and Garden View (2002).

On March 11, 2018, Mary Rosenblum died after the small plane she was piloting crashed near La Center, Washington.