Michelle Gamble-Risley is an award-winning author with over 20 years in the publishing and marketing business. Her first book Second Bloom: 10 Steps to Reinvent, Rejuvenate and Realize a New Life was published in January 2009 and immediately won two awards from the Indie Book Awards, which is the equivalent to the Oscars for movies. Her new book SMASH: A Smart Girl's Guide to Practical Marketing and Public Relations came out in July 2009.

She has enjoyed a prosperous career working for a variety of industries as an editor, writer, publisher and marketing expert. Michelle Gamble-Risley found-ed MGR Consulting in 2006. She is a seasoned veteran of the communication business, with over 20 years experience in public relations, marketing and custom publishing. She began her career in 1988 working respectively for the California departments of Justice and Water Resources. In 1991, she joined California Computer News and eventually took over the role as publisher, working on strategic communication programs to increase the publication’s market presence and overall success. She then joined two new start-up com-panies called The Center for Digital Government and The Center for Digital Education where she served as executive editor and director of custom pub-lications and developed an array of marketing and communication programs and services. After a brief position as director of strategic communications at a marketing agency, she left to form her own agency. She recently merged MGR Consulting with M Communications.

Michelle has appeared on CCN, ABC National News, radio shows and in numerous print publications. Her articles has been published both regionally and nationally in Converge, T.H.E. Journal, Engineering News Record, Tele-communications Week, Government Technology, Comstock’s, Sacramento Magazine, Access, and dozens of others. She is an accomplished speaker and presenter and has done presentations at numerous conferences across the country. She is also a screenwriter and her movie Virtual Seduction aired on Showtime.