Paz Marquez Benitez was born in 1894 in Lucena, Tayabas (now Quezon). Marquez – Benítez authored the first Filipino modern English language short story, Dead Stars,
published in the Philippine Herald in 1925. Born into the prominent
Marquez family of Quezon province, she was among the first generation of
Filipino people trained in the American education system which used
English as the medium of instruction. She graduated high school in
Tayabas High School now, Quezon National High School. She was a member
of the first freshman class of the University of the Philippines,
graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1912.
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After "Dead Stars" she only had one more published short story, entitled "A Night in the Hills". Two years after graduation, she married fellow teacher Francisco Benitez. In 1919 she founded Woman's Home Journal, the first women's magazine in the country and later became the editor of Filipino Love Stories, the first anthology of Philippine short stories in english - compiled in 1928 from the works of her students.
When her husband died in 1951, she took over as editor of the Philippine Journal of Education at U.P., holding the editorial post for over two decades.
