As a child, Oleksyk wanted to be a cartoonist, developing her style by making autobiographical comics. She eventually began reading graphic novels, explaining the plots as: “Japanese comics about the atom bomb dropping on Hiroshima, [Art Spiegelman’s holocaust epic] Maus, pretty much really freaky human-atrocity stuff. That’s what I was into back then.” She wrote in her journal while in high school, inspiring her future graphic novel Ivy. She continued cartooning while in college, something that was looked down upon and wasn't taught at the college at the time. She graduated from Parsons School of Design in New York, majoring in Illustration. She worked the graveyard shift at a Kinko's (now known as FedEx) for two years. She is 5'6".