.png)
Woodview Stories is a Young Adult contemporary fiction book series. It tells the coming of age tales of a diverse group of teens living in the affluent Long Island neighborhood of Woodview.
​
The overarching story progresses through the books chronologically with each installment switching narrator to focus on a different person's point of view. It all begins with Elena, whose sudden move to Woodview from Miami sets off a chain of events that affects the lives of everyone around her.
I first came up with the idea for It Could Always Be Worse when I was a junior at George W. Hewlett High School. In fact, Woodview was loosely inspired by Hewlett and the surrounding area (although really, the series could take place in any affluent Long Island neighborhood).
​
I wrote a brief outline but then quickly forgot about it.
A few years later, I was attending Drexel University in Philadelphia when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. During quarantine, I found the original outline and wrote a few chapters between online classes. Then in-person classes resumed and I put Woodview Stories on the backburner while I focused on completing my degree.
Shortly after graduating in June 2022, I showed my mom what I had written. She encouraged me to take a year off before getting a "real job" and said she would support me while I focused on finishing the book. Within that year I not only finished the first book, It Could Always Be Worse, but also wrote a sequel, and got halfway through a third. I also outlined ideas for over a dozen more. Now that the first book has been published, I plan to get a “real job” while continuing to write more installments of the Woodview Stories series.
Ian Rose Castro (he/they) was an avid reader as a child, but as a queer Latine teen, he always wished he could see more characters like him and his friends in the books he read. He has always loved creative writing, so he decided to try writing his own.
​
Ian graduated from Drexel University magna cum laude, with a B.S. in Music Industry, dual minors in Communication and Business Administration, and a Certificate in Creative Writing and Publishing. He loves to listen to music, binge trashy TV, and cuddle with his dog. He currently lives on Long Island.