Ortiz-Cofer was born in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico, moved to the United States in 1956 with her family to Paterson, New Jersey. Her family often made back-and-forth trips between Paterson and Hormigueros. In 1967, her family moved to Augusta, Georgia, where she attended Butler High School. Cofer received a B.A. in English from Augusta College, and later an M.A. in English from Florida Atlantic University.

Ortiz-Cofer's work can largely be classified as creative nonfiction. Her narrative style is strongly influenced by oral storytelling, which was inspired by her grandmother, an able storyteller in the tradition of teaching through storytelling among Puerto Rican women. Cofer's autobiographical work often focuses on her attempts at negotiating her life between two cultures, American and Puerto Rican, and how this process informs her sensibilities as a writer. Her work also explores such subjects as racism and sexism in American culture, machismo and female empowerment in Puerto Rican culture, and the challenges diasporic immigrants face in a new culture.

In 1984 she joined the faculty of the University of Georgia, where she is currently Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing. In April 2010, Ortiz-Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

• Peregrina (1986)
• Terms of Survival (1987)
• The Line of the Sun (1989)
• A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood (1990)
• The Latin Deli (1993)
• Reaching for the Mainland and Selected New Poems (1995)
• An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio (1996)
• Catch The Moon (1996)
• The Year of Our Revolution (1998)
• Sleeping with One Eye Open: Women Writers and the Art of Survival (1999)
• Woman in Front of the Sun: On Becoming A Writer (2000)
• The Meaning of Consuelo (2003)
• Call Me Maria (2004)
• American History

In 2005 she published her most recent book, A Love Story Beginning in Spanish: Poems. Among Cofer's more well known essays are "The Story of My Body" and "The Myth of the Latin Woman," both reprinted in The Latin Deli.