Jenny Ortuoste, PhD, was an award-winning essayist, fictionist, editor, teacher, and communication specialist.

She gained newsroom experience as an online editor at a major daily newspaper, and has also had stints in government in management, operations, and communications, and in the private sector in management and administration, events management, and PR.As a horseracing industry insider for three decades, she wrote a horseracing column ("The Hoarse Whisperer") for the Manila Standard for over ten years, where she simultaneously wrote opinion ("Pop Goes the World").

Also a creative writer, her piece on the now-defunct Santa Ana Park won a first-place Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Essay in 2011. Five of her short stories have garnered Nick Joaquin Literary awards. Her stories have been published in Philippines Graphic and other publications, while her creative nonfiction has appeared in academic journals – the University of Santo Tomas's Tomas and the University of the Philippines-Diliman's Likhaan. UST Publishing House released her first collection of short stories, "Fictionary," in 2016.

She taught herself watercolor painting and urban sketching, and also created textile art in embroidery, quilting, and crochet. Some pieces from her "Salitang Makulay" series of embroidered works were exhibited at the "Chromatext Rebooted" show at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2016. Two of her artworks have graced the covers of books - one of a UST author, the other of a Fil-American poet in Northern California.

Jenny taught master’s-level courses in communication, marketing communication, creative writing, and journalism at the UST Graduate School, where she was an assistant professor. She obtained her BA and PhD Communication degrees from UP-Diliman, and an MBA from the Ateneo de Manila University.  

She survived cancer twice over, battling and defeating stage 3 colon cancer and stage 1 breast cancer, but succumbed to pancreatic cancer in July of 2024. She was 56.