Born in Bogota, Colombia, she emigrated as a child with her family to the USA, fleeing from the violence in her native country. Her first novel, Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction at the California Book Awards. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Buzzfeed, Nylon, and Guernica, among other publications. Rojas Contreras has received numerous awards and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, VONA, Hedgebrook, the Camargo Foundation, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. 

She is currently a lecturer in fiction at the University of San Francisco and works with immigrant secondary-school students as part of a San Francisco Arts Commission initiative. She is also a member of the Macondo Foundation and a regular contributor as a radio columnist.