Edward Packard (writer)

Edward Packard (born February 16, 1931) is an American author, creator of the Choose Your Own Adventure book concept and author of over 50 books in the series.^{[1][2] [3]} The genre that Packard invented, in which the reader chooses what happens, has come to be called "interactive fiction".^[4] Packard wrote many other children's books as well, and is also a lawyer, essayist, and poet. He continues to write books, and blogs regularly on his website, edwardpackard.com. Born in Huntington, New York, he is a graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School.^[5]

Packard conceived the original idea of writing interactive second-person fiction — in which the reader is the protagonist ("you are the hero") and makes choices that affect how the story unfolds — while he was thinking up bedtime stories for his children. (While telling them a story, making it up as he went along, he would enlist their help by pausing to ask them, "What do you think happened next?", and they would each have different ideas about how they wanted the story to proceed.) After he published the first three books in this format, originally called "The Adventures of You", Bantam Books offered him and his first publisher a contract for a series, rebranded and made famous as the Choose Your Own Adventure series of children's books.^[6][7]

Packard is the grandfather of actor David Corenswet.