Emiley Kiser grew up one of nine children in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in South Carolina. Anne of Green Gables, To Kill a Mockingbird and other stories of precocious young women encouraged her to fall in love with storytelling. She graduated from DeSales University with a degree in Theatre and a specialty in Acting/Directing. After spending six years in New York City, she moved to Chicago to join the inaugural graduate acting class at Northwestern University. During the pandemic she rediscovered her love for gardening and thrift store shopping, and became the owner of backyard chickens.