Jill Hoffman's first book of poems, Mink Coat, was published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1973. Her first novel, Jilted, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1993. She founded Box Turtle Press in 1983 and has since published 44 books: 24 issues of Mudfish, starting with Mudfish 1984 and 20 issues of Mudfish Individual Poet Series. Kimono with Young Girl Sleeves is Mudfish Individual Poet Series #20. Before that, Box Turtle Press published her collection black diaries (poems) in 2000 and The Gates of Pearl (a book-length poem) in 2018. In 2023, a second novel, Stoned, was published (Mudfish Fiction Series 1). She is also a painter and has painted the covers for many of these books.

Hoffman has a BA from Bennington, a Master's degree from Columbia and a Ph.D. from Cornell. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1974 to 1975. She has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Bard, The University of North Carolina, The New School, and other institutions. Presently she teaches a Mudfish Writing Workshop on Zoom from her Tribeca, New York studio.