Madelyn Dietz

Madelyn has been creating stories since she could speak. The first homeschooled National Student Poet, the nation’s highest honor for youth poets presenting original work, she has had the honor of supporting young writers across the country. Her fiction is equally recognized: Madelyn was named a YoungArts Winner in Short Story and was one of only 20 US Presidential Scholars in the Arts in 2020. She graduated from Princeton University in 2025 with high honors, receiving the prestigious Joyce Carol Oates Award for poetry and prose. Wordplay Wisdom was created by Madelyn and her mother, Stephanie Surles, a gifted writer who instilled her with a deep love of words.