In addition to her books of poetry, she is author of the novel Shattering Glass, a story about today's woman trying to balance career and family.
After graduating from law school, and drawing on her experiences there as a working mother trying to balance career and family, she began writing her novel, Shattering Glass, which was published in 1996.
[6][7] A proponent of funding for regional arts organizations, she also urged the development of programs to provide access to major cultural events to less populated areas.
[8] She is a founding Member of the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada, the government agency which oversees payment of royalties to writers for the use of their books in libraries.
Rotstein began writing poetry as a young child and was first published at the age of 12, when her grandmother Ida Berk submitted (without her knowing it) one of her poems to the national magazine Chatelaine.
"She has a strong sense of history, fair play and justice" said The Ottawa Citizen[25] about the collection, and the Edmonton Journal said there is "a precision in language that somehow makes her poems both specific and universal.
"[26] Maclean's Magazine wrote, "If there's a single theme that links a lifetime's work, it's just that – the impermanence of every human achievement, the fragility of peace, order and good government.
[30] In telling the story of one woman whose teenage son gets in trouble with the police, Rotstein was allowed into areas restricted to staff in a Detention Center in order to experience first-hand how a mother might feel if she found her child there.