Her father was on the faculty of Stanford Law School, where he highlighted the tensions between Due Process and Crime Control.

She attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop from 1986 to 1988, selling her first short story to The New Yorker a few weeks before receiving her M.F.A.

Geri Thoma of the Elaine Markson Agency agreed to take on the book and sold it almost immediately to the editor Jordan Pavlin at Alfred A. Knopf.

[citation needed] Packer’s next two books were also published by Knopf: a novel, Songs Without Words (2007), and a collection of short fiction, Swim Back to Me (2011).

[12] In addition to fiction, Packer has written essays for The Washington Post'', Vogue,[13] Real Simple and O, the Oprah Magazine.