It Could Have Been Way Worse than It Was

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In our Young Writers Publish program, 826NYC develops creative writing projects with classes of students and teachers in schools throughout New York City. Ninth and tenth grade students from the Academy for Young Writers bridged the worlds of the imagination and the day-to-day with two distinct writing projects. While the ninth graders bent the rules of reality in science fiction letting us travel through space and into the distant future, the tenth graders dug deep in their own experiences and crafted compelling personal narratives. It Could Have Been Way Worse than It Was is a compilation of the original work of these students.

A huge thank you to the 826NYC teaching artists, Daniel Goulden and Jaydra Johnson, for creating classrooms where students were able to build new worlds and explore their own, in thoughtful, truly original prose. Your support and encouragement helped our young writers tap into their imaginations and memories to produce such exciting and moving work, and your care in helping them brainstorm, write, and revise throughout this project was invaluable.

We are particularly grateful to Lucia Brockway, Anicka Charles, Alex Cuff, Kesha Kennedy, and Jaclyn Reyes for their support of this project. Thank you for inviting us into your classrooms, and collaborating with us through successes and challenging moments. Your hard work and steadfast dedication to your students allows them to flourish as incredible writers and thinkers. Thanks as well to Rachel Jacobs for supporting the creation of the fantastic artwork featured on the cover and throughout the book.

Thank you to Joanne Beckford, Terra Cabey, Chandra Datadeen, Akoni Drysdale-Ash, Zebastian Florimon, and Marsy Orellana for contributing the beautiful artwork featured on the cover of this book.

Thank you to our writing mentors, Eunice An, Arrianne Bautista, Kate Brennan, Sammy Gibbons, Carol Goldberg, Jess Mayer-Jones, Katherine Peach, Remoy Philip, Ronnie Wolff, and Ling Zhu, for keeping up with these young writers and nurturing their growing texts.

At 826NYC we depend on the dedicated volunteer editing and design cohort that make our publications a reality. Thank you to Vanessa Friedman for overseeing the editing, proofreading, and design of this book. Thank you to Kelly McComas for designing such a beau376