Michael Hoard

Award Winning Author Michael Hoard grew up in Southern Louisiana where he attended the University of Southwestern Louisiana (Currently University of Louisiana at Lafayette) for two years as an Art Major. A 9 to 5 career in an office was completely forgotten when he got that first summer job working the back deck of a seismic survey boat on the Gulf of Mexico. He has remained in the oilfield and on the Gulf his entire adult life.

Now, at 50, he lives in Middletown, NY with his wife Kathy, who he has been married to for 8 happy years, "the best years of my life". He is an avid fisherman who spends hours on the lakes and reservoirs scattered throughout the Hudson Valley searching for that one Walleye or Bass that will be his lifetime trophy. His two daughters complete his life and as he says, "I can die tomorrow a happy man!"

A FORSAKEN SOUL, my debut novella, was written about fifteen years ago and not published until 2016. One day I bumped into an old friend from my younger days who is now an editor. After she read it I was urged to put it in print. As she told me, "This is a very power story!"

The Adventures of Nick and Billy: The Mystery of the Rougarou, winner of the 2017 Summer Indie Book Awards, was written fifteen years later, after learning that people actually wanted to read his stories. "We moved from Melrose, Florida, to Pierre Part (Louisiana) when I was 12. I quickly acquired two best friends that I still keep in touch with occasionally, 36 years after moving from there. I loved the crawfish boils, the team sports, the hardworking, God-fearing people, and the abundant wildlife and beautiful scenery that surrounded my community. Most of all, I loved the adventure that was never lacking with so much untamed wilderness to explore. I still remember my mom’s hollering from our back yard that it was time to come home – unlike Nick and Billy, I was sometimes late coming in from Swamp Camp, haha. I only wish that every boy had the opportunity to grow up in such a rich environment to learn the good things not taught in school.

“Swamp Camp” was in fact the camp we had as kids. Like Nick, I would spend hours out there alone watching and learning. The swamp was always my private sanctuary and it will always be thought of as such by me. The trail leading from Nick’s house to the camp is the same trail that led from my back yard. The transition from field grass, to willow trees, to swamp is exactly as how I remember it and the trance-like state that Nick falls into as he follows behind Billy is exactly how I felt when walking out there. This story was easy to write for me – I just had to put on paper exactly what I remember seeing as a boy and how it made me feel.