Meet the Author

Welcome to MamaPaca.com. Thank you for joining me in hope.   I am the founder and author of Penning for Hope. While on the front lines of the opioid epidemic I have met people who have changed my world and inspired me to write this series of children's books.   

I write to...

Make sense of the world, and what I see in my personal life and professional practice.

Honor people’s journey and lives.

Highlight the many pathways to recovery.

Celebrate people who have found meaning and purpose in their pain and heartbreak.

Share the inspiration that is gifted to me by people battling this disease and their loved ones. 

Lend words with relatable story lines of difficult topics. 

Annihilate this insidious disease by dragging it into to the light of day. 

I write to share hope through togetherness, wellness and possibility.

Together we  honor those who fight and have fought courageously to turn the tide of the epidemic.

 My name is Kat, and I’m an addict in recovery. I’m an illustrator, art therapy student, abstract expressionist, and mixed media artist.  I’m a caregiver, person living with mental illness, lover of living things, seeker.

I attempted to remain abstinent from substances for years and failed repeatedly. I live with a disease that is chronic and deadly. With inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment, sober living, a 12-step program, and being an active member in the recovery community I have been in remission since March 31st, 2018. 

 I create because I need to. I create because it is what brings me closest to my truest self. That self may live in me but it also lives on paper. Sometimes I draw so I don’t have to carry burdens within me. I must release them into this physical world. And often, when seen, they are understood by others. We all have different stories but similar burdens, and I don’t seek out help alone anymore. For myself, connection is the answer to healing.

I believe in art as a meditation, art as exploration, as a practice of patience, as self-expression, emotional release and discovery, art as play, to seek and find and grow. 

Understanding addiction as a disease, and living through loss and suffering is confusing and painful. I illustrated this book to help create clarity, stop stigma, and give hope through storytelling. Addicts and loved ones of addicts need not suffer alone. We do recover.

 I was a stay-at-home raising three beautiful children, Carrie, Matthew and Raeche,  while running a small business sewing slipcovers when my life was turned upside down by opioids.   In April 2011 I discovered Matthew overdosing. I had no idea what was happening or that he was addicted.  Eighteen months later on September 4, 2012 I found my beloved son dead from an overdose.

After what felt like a lifetime of grieving alone in the brutal reality of the stigma of this disease, I created Matthew’s Candle, a support group for parents in October of 2015.  The grief work was so impactful to families who were grieving and my own healing process that I accepted an invitation to join the Plymouth County Outreach team in the role of Peer Grief Support Specialist. In this first of its kind role, I visit families in their home following a fatal overdose to let them know they don’t need to suffer alone as I did.  These visits in the darkest days of grief ignite a flicker of light by offering support and resources. 

In addition to grief work, my advocacy efforts have put me on the road with other grieving parents.  We’ve traveled to Lowell, MA to participate in the Opioid Summits in Lowell, MA; to  Manchester NH to support the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation with James Wahlberg and his “If Only” presentation; and to Washington DC with James Wahlberg to present “If Only” to the Interim Director of the Drug Enforcement Administration to voice our concerns about this ongoing epidemic and ways to help. 

Almost 10 years into this part of my journey, I continue to run my small business from my home in Halifax, Massachusetts which I share with my husband of 40 years, Gregg, our daughters and our granddaughter, Abigail.  In addition to the grief and advocacy work that have become part of my calling, I have added memorial animals as a tribute to Matthew to the menu of home-sewn options I create. 

I have spent over 35 years assisting Latino clients overcome trauma and have become

profoundly affected by Latinos’ ability to maintain hope and persevere in the face of overwhelming

adversity. I seek to use my platform as professor, trainer and lecturer to elucidate and help dispel

myths promulgated by the dominant culture in the United States about Latinos and their coping styles.

I seek to bring diverse peoples together to foster understanding.

I am bilingual in Spanish and provide therapy to Latino adolescents, adults and families. I lead

the Latino Team at Advocates in Framingham, Massachusetts. I am an adjunct professor at Boston

College School of Social Work and teaches in their Latino Leadership Initiative.

I have had a passion for studying language, culture and issues of acculturation ever since I was an

undergraduate at Tufts University. I earned a Master’s in Social Work from Boston University in

1990. My colleagues, students and clients highly value my ability to interpret cultural differences to

foster understanding and thereby improve treatment outcomes. The Mama Paca project speaks to the

same resiliency I have found so deeply moving in the Latino community and was thrilled to be able to

help bring the project to fruition. I can be reached at Bethncraft@gmail.com.