Rachel and Kasie have been friends for years. We want to say we met at band camp, but it was band camp adjacent.

Kasie had just stepped away from classroom teaching to open a children's theater in Clearwater. Rachel walked in to enroll her incredibly talented daughter, and boom, a friendship was born. Being a teacher herself, Rachel didn't just support her daughter; she nurtured the whole theater family. You really can't take the teaching out of a teacher.

They forged this bond over a shared love of storytelling, directing full-on musicals with the students, writing scenes, monologues, and coaching for competitions.

Eventually, Rachel’s daughter grew up and went off to a performing arts high school, but their friendship just kept moving into the next chapter. For a few years, they walked and talked books, teaching, health, kids, and life. Then, landed in a coffee shop, and just kept talking books and life over caffeine.

One day, Rachel showed Kasie this thing called a book journal. Now, Kasie is a reader, but Rachel is a Language Arts teacher, so she’s a reader extra extra! For a whole year, Kasie just read Rachel's journaled books until she finally said, "Okay, let me try this." It started small, it snowballed, and then one day Kasie looked at Rachel and said, "We're starting a podcast."

Rachel laughed. "Hahaha, no, that’s silly. We’re just friends sharing our favorite reads."

Well, the next week Kasie walked in with starter microphones, set them down on the cafe table, opened her journal, and said, "Alright, we're doing this right now." Rachel just said, "Okay."

They’ve never looked back!

Here they are, turning the page into their second year of podcasting. Happily growing slow, but growing together, and they love sharing this with the world. They couldn’t think of any other place we’d rather be in life. Rachel is the yin to Kasie's yang. Kasie's the cream to Rachel's coffee, and we are both the library cards to our unorganized stack of paperbacks, and the perfect plot twist to her everyday life. She speaks in cursive, lets Kasie make up her own vocabulary, and both run full steam ahead with quirky ideas. They are both the better for it.

She is so much more than a bookish bestie. She is a friend, a chosen sister, and real family

And that’s our story.

❤️📖☕Rachel & Kasie