Karen Jean Matsko Hood

I am often asked how I find time to write with 16 kids. The answer is that writing keeps me grounded..ok almost grounded... in my sometimes..ok I mean often...chaotic surroundings. Thanks for sharing your books and hopefully you will be able to enjoy some of mine. I have always loved to read and am passionate about poetry and almost all genres of books. My current goal is to complete my next poetry book and my next novel. I am also a foodie that enjoys all aspects of cooking and that inspired my cookbook series. My children and foster children opened my eyes to the ongoing struggles in the foster system and the world of adoption. My own experience with foster care and adopting 11 wonderful children of different colors inspired me to write books to help others in these areas. Also I love children's literature and am a literacy and biliteracy advocate. That explains a bit about me and why I write in so many genres. It is simply the way my brain is wired. That is the way I work. Karen Jean Matsko Hood has always enjoyed cooking, baking, and experimenting with recipes. Hood entertains large groups of people and especially enjoys designing creative menus with holiday, international, ethnic, and regional themes. Hood is publishing a cookbook series entitled the Cookbook Delights Series, in which each cookbook emphasizes a different food ingredient or theme. The first cookbook in the series is Apple Delights Cookbook. Hood is working to complete another series of cookbooks titled Hood and Matsko Family Cookbooks, which includes many recipes handed down from her family heritage and others from more current family traditions. She has been invited to speak on talk radio shows on various topics, and favorite recipes from her cookbooks have been prepared on local television programs. Hood was born and raised in Great Falls, Montana. As an undergraduate, she attended the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota, and St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. She attended the University of Great Falls in Great Falls, Montana. Hood received a B.S. Degree in Natural Science from the College of St. Benedict and minored in both Psychology and Secondary Education. Upon her graduation, Hood and her husband taught science and math on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hood has completed postgraduate classes at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. In May 2001, she completed her Master’s Degree in Pastoral Ministry at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. She has taken postgraduate classes at Lewis and Clark College on the North Idaho college campus in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Taylor University in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hood is working on research projects to complete her Ph.D. in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. Hood resides in Greenacres, Washington, along with her husband, sixteen children, and foster children. Her interests include writing, teaching, and volunteering as a court advocate in the juvenile court system for abused and neglected children. Hood is a literary advocate for youth and adults. Her hobbies include cooking, baking, collecting, photography, indoor and outdoor gardening, and the cultivation of unusual flowering plants and orchids. She enjoys raising several specialty breeds of animals including Icelandic horses, Nubian goats, bichons frisés, cockapoos, Icelandic sheepdogs, Newfoundlands, Rottweilers, and a few rescue cats.