Rachel S. Donahue & Carolyn Clare Givens

Rachel Donahue isn’t a typical homeschooling mother of four: after finishing her English degree, she and her husband, Mick, moved to Spain and spent the next dozen years in cross-cultural ministry. When family circumstances brought them back to North Carolina, a return to literature ushered her into a new season of writing: both poetry and the beginnings of a novel. Friendships with other writers, combined with her editing experience and design work, led to the publication of her first book: Real Poems for Real Moms: from a Mother in the Trenches to Another. Rachel is the author of Beyond Chittering Cottage: Poems of Place, published by Bandersnatch Books in 2021.

Carolyn Clare Givens is a displaced Northerner exploring the foreign ways of the South. She works in communications at New City Church in North Carolina, handling much of the stuff that goes on screens or paper (or signs, or t-shirts, or pens, or mugs….). Carrie lives in Charlotte with her literary cat, Lord Peter Wimsey. She has previously bumped around the world, both as a missionary kid and adult. Carrie was part of the publishing process on more than 30 books before launching Bandersnatch. She’s the author of Rosefire, published by Bandersnatch Books in 2021, and The King’s Messenger, released as a new edition by Bandersnatch in 2022.