Barbara Brotman is a writer for the Chicago Tribune's projects team, where she has focused on the ways religion and spirituality interact with people's lives.
She joined the Tribune in 1978 and wrote for the features department before becoming a general assignment reporter. She wrote the "About the Town" column from 1984 until 1989, for which she won a UPI International Award for Illinois Newspapers for Column Writing and a Peter Lisagor Award from Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists.
She then covered the abortion issue from both a local and national perspective. She became a columnist and staff writer for the Woman News section in 1994, receiving honorable mention in 2002 from the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors. In 2003-04, she held a John S. Knight Fellowship for journalists at Stanford University.
Born in New York, Brotman graduated from Queens College.