Orlan­do Orte­ga-Med­i­na was born in Los Ange­les to Jew­ish immi­grants from Cuba. He stud­ied Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture at UCLA and has a Juris Doc­tor law degree from South­west­ern Uni­ver­si­ty School of Law. At uni­ver­si­ty, he won the Nation­al Soci­ety of Arts and Let­ters Award for Short Sto­ries. Ortega-Medina’s short sto­ry col­lec­tion Jerusalem Ablaze was short­list­ed for The Polari First Book Prize (2017). In 2018, he was named the Mar­i­lyn Has­sid Emerg­ing Author for the Hous­ton Jew­ish Book & Arts Fes­ti­val. He is the author of two nov­els, The Death of Base­ball (2019) and The Sav­ior of 6th Street (2020). Orte­ga-Med­i­na lives in London.