Madeline Dierker grew up in St. Louis, attending St. Roch School and St. Joseph’s Academy. She has her BA from DePaul University in English Literature with a concentration in Creative Writing. As a New York Teaching Fellow, she received her MSEd in TESOL and taught English as a Second Language and English Language Arts at a high school in Brooklyn, NY. She returned to St. Louis in 2019 with her husband and children.