John Green

John Green

John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author, YouTube content creator, podcaster, and philanthropist. His books have more than 50 million copies in print worldwide, including The Fault in Our Stars (2012), which is one of the best-selling books of all time. Green's rapid rise to fame and idiosyncratic voice are credited with creating a major shift in the young adult fiction market. Aside from being a novelist, Green is well known for his work in online video, most notably his YouTube ventures with his brother Hank Green. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Green was raised in Orlando, Florida, before attending boarding school outside of Birmingham, Alabama, graduating in 1995. He attended Kenyon College, graduating with a double major in English and religious studies in 2000. Green then spent six months as a student chaplain at a children's hospital. He was deeply affected by the difficult experience, which later partially inspired The Fault in Our Stars. Green reconsidered his path and began working at Booklist in Chicago while writing his first novel. His debut novel Looking for Alaska (2005) was awarded the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award. While living in New York City, Green published his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines (2006), which became a Printz Honor book. Starting on January 1, 2007, John and his brother Hank launched the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel, a series of vlogs submitted to one another on alternating weekdays; the videos spawned an active online-based community called Nerdfighteria and an annual telethon-style fundraiser called Project for Awesome, both of which have persisted and grown over time. John moved back to Indianapolis in 2007, and published three novels over the next three years: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances (2008, with Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle), his third solo novel, Paper Towns (2008), and Will Grayson, Will Grayson (2010, with David Levithan). From 2010 to 2013, John and Hank launched several online video projects: VidCon, an annual conference for the online video community; Crash Course (2011–present), a wide-ranging educational channel; and Subbable, a crowdfunding platform which was purchased by Patreon in 2015. Green's 2012 novel, The Fault in Our Stars, proved to be a massive success. The book created a passionate fan base of readers and debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for children's chapter books, remaining in the top ten for over two-and-a-half years. The 2014 film adaptation was also a commercial and critical success, leading to several other film and television adaptations of his work. That same year, Green was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2015, the weekly comedy podcast Dear Hank & John (2015–present) debuted, co-hosted by the Green brothers. Green's subsequent projects, his novel Turtles All the Way Down (2017) and The Anthropocene Reviewed (2018–2021), dealt more directly with his own struggles with anxiety and obsessive–compulsive disorder. The Anthropocene Reviewed began as a podcast in January 2018, with Green reviewing different facets of the Anthropocene on a five-star scale. Green later adapted the essays into his first nonfiction book, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet (2021). The essays were ordered chronologically through his life to give the approximate structure of a memoir. John has also collaborated with his wife, art curator Sarah Urist Green, on the video series The Art Assignment (2017–2020) and Ours Poetica (2019–present), which focus on visual art and poetry respectively. Since the mid-2010s, John Green has been a prominent supporter, fundraiser, and later trustee for Partners In Health and their goal of reducing maternal mortality in Sierra Leone.

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