Meet Michele Packard

Michele, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
I was twelve years old when my mother had an aneurysm that left her paralyzed on her entire left side of her body. She was in intensive care for months and rehabilitation for years. I saw her struggle with every day things for twenty-five more years, but she never lost hope and faith. I learned resiliency by watching her.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I worked for years in cables tv as an executive and my husband and I made the decision that I’d stay home to raise our children. I was the cheer mom, football mom, holiday mom, bring lunch to teacher mom, and participated in every aspect for twelve years. When my twins were heading to college, I suddenly realized there was going to be a big void in my time. What was I going to do now? My family says I tend to exaggerate stories, so I sat down on my computer and wrote a fictional thriller series based off authors I enjoyed reading (Patterson, Thor, Woods). I intertwined it with historical and current events and conspiracies, and for grins added in a punch of humor. I’m launching book 5, DEFCON, of the ongoing series AESOP series in April. I was awarded in 2022 by BestThrillers.com as “…the one of the years top political thrillers”. It’s been thrilling (and daunting) navigating this ever-changing industry, but I’ve connected with authors and readers in this next chapter of life.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Three qualities that will assist you: Patience, Resiliency, and Faith. If you are a starting author, I’d encourage you to make connections with other authors. Learn from each other. There’s more to writing than putting words on paper. You must polish, edit, format, market, distribute…and not everyone is going to love what you do write. That’s ok. Focus on your motivation and goals.

What is the number one obstacle or challenge you are currently facing and what are you doing to try to resolve or overcome this challenge?
Writing books come easy to me. I write in a first-person observational style. I consider myself more a storyteller versus writer in that sense. Marketing the book and obtaining reviews is a whole other beast of a challenge and a time consuming effort. For 2023, I’m redirecting efforts to launching wide for distribution, focusing marketing efforts on reviews, and building reader connections. I have written goals and measure myself on them.