ROTEM BARUCHIN GREW UP IN TEL AVIV, Ramat Gan, Petach Tikva and Giv’at Shmuel, all in Israel, as well as in Swiss suburbia. She began reading science fiction and fantasy at the tender age of eight, and started writing it at about the same age. For years she has combined fanzine writing with original fiction, published in both printed and online magazines, and then went on to study screenwriting at Tel Aviv University’s School of Film and TV.
For the past ten years, she has been writing plays for Israeli LGTB groups such as the Gay Ensemble, which were produced on commercial stages. She was a co-writer for a children’s show, The Dreamers, broadcast by an Israeli TV channel, and directed several plays and musicals for a number of theaters, festivals and conventions, including an interactive production involving audience choices. Her Internet series The Grey Matter, filmed in the US, can be seen online. For the Israeli youth magazine Rosh 1 she wrote two story series, published over a couple of years.
Rotem won three Geffen prizes for her short stories, and is currently working on her first full-scale novel in a planned series, The Cities’ Guardians, which is based on the premise that every community has a “spirit of place” that manifests itself as a living entity – supernatural, eternal and almost omnipotent. Last year Rotem opened an account with the international website Patreon, which allows content creators to receive communal support for their work; she now has some 100 regular supporters. Some of her stories have been translated into English.
Rotem Baruchin is a regular participant in Israeli SF/F conventions, in which she runs writing workshops, and is also a member of a volunteer group dedicated to the prevention of sexual harassment at conventions. She lives in Ramat Gan with her two cats. Her favorite genre is urban fantasy, and she loves looking for magic in cafés and bars, in dazzling streetlights, in broken pavement stones and in anyone alive in the city’s boulevards after three a.m. who is still drinking coffee.