John Green: Shaping Young Adult Literature Through Education and Experience
John Michael Green, born on August 24, 1977, is an American author and YouTuber whose work has significantly impacted the young adult fiction market. His unique voice and ability to connect with readers have garnered him both critical acclaim and commercial success. With over 50 million copies of his books in print worldwide, including the best-selling "The Fault in Our Stars," Green's journey to becoming a literary sensation is rooted in his diverse educational background and life experiences.
Early Life and Education
Green's upbringing was split between Orlando, Florida, and Birmingham, Alabama. He is the son of Mike Green, a business executive, media consultant, and producer of socially engaged films, and Sydney Goodrich Green, the daughter of Henry Goodrich, the onetime chairman and chief executive officer of Inland Container Corporation. Before attending Kenyon College in Ohio, Green attended the Indian Springs School near Birmingham.
In 1995, Green enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where he double majored in English and religious studies, graduating in 2000. His time at Kenyon was formative, as he befriended Ransom Riggs and was in a comedy troupe with him.
From Chaplain to Author: A Change in Path
After graduating, Green spent about half a year working as a student chaplain at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, while enrolled at the University of Chicago Divinity School, although he never actually attended the school. Initially intending to become an Episcopal priest, his experiences with patients at the hospital, confronting sadness and loss, led him to reconsider his career path. The traumatic experiences of working in a hospital with children suffering from life-threatening illnesses and injuries made him reconsider his path.
This period of reflection ultimately steered him toward writing. "The kids I met [while working as a student chaplain] were funny and bright and angry and dark and just as human as anybody else. And I really wanted to try to capture that. I felt that the stories that I was reading sort of oversimplified and sometimes even dehumanized them.
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Early Career in Publishing
Green began his literary career working as a publishing assistant and production editor at the Chicago-based book review magazine Booklist. While working at Booklist, Green met author Ilene Cooper, whose example persuaded him he could write a novel, saying, "I saw that real people like Ilene wrote books; they weren't written in ivory towers." Cooper invited Green to lunch to discuss his future. She set a deadline for Green to present her with a draft of his first book, which Green failed to present to her twice over.
While in Chicago, Green also wrote for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered as well as for public radio station WBEZ.
Mental Health Challenges and Breakthrough
Near the end of 2001, Green suffered from a mental health crisis so severe he could not eat, and instead drank only two-liter bottles of Sprite. He lived with his parents for a brief time while seeing a psychiatrist and going on medication. When he returned to Chicago, he began writing Looking for Alaska.
Green wrote the novel divided into "before" and "after" the character Alaska's death, with chapters denoted through the number of days before or after the death. Green presented the first draft to Cooper, who served as a mentor through the following two versions. Cooper sent the third draft to Dutton Children's Books in early 2003, who awarded Green with a publishing contract and a small four-figure book deal. Looking for Alaska was assigned to editor Julie Strauss-Gabel, which began their collaboration that has persisted through all of Green's books. In a 2015 interview with The New York Times, Green reflected, "In a publishing world that maybe doesn't have as many long-term relationships as it used to, she invested a lot of time in me before I ever earned a profit. I've never written a book without Julie.
Literary Success: Young Adult Novels
Green's first published book, Looking for Alaska, was published in March 2005. The novel is a coming-of-age school story and teen romance about a boarding school student who gets bullied, partially inspired by Green's experiences at Indian Springs, Alabama, fictionalized as Culver Creek Preparatory High School. The novel follows a teenage boy as he spends his junior year at a boarding school where he makes friends, falls in love, and deals with loss and death.
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Looking for Alaska won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. Receiving the award caused book sales to rapidly rise, with Green describing his reaction upon hearing he had won the award as, "probably the purest moment of joy I've experienced. The novel was well-received critically, but saw only modest sales at first.
Green moved to the Upper West Side in New York City in 2005 while his then-fiancée Sarah Urist attended graduate school at Columbia University. He worked at Mental Floss magazine while he continued his second novel, having already finished a first draft while living in Chicago. He co-authored several Mental Floss gift books while there, including Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets, What's the Difference?
Green’s next book, An Abundance of Katherines, was published in 2006 and was named a Printz honor book in 2007. Its main character, Colin, has dated 19 girls named Katherine, and they have all broken up with him. Confused and angry about his dating past, Colin goes on a road trip with his friend Hassan. Along the way, Colin tries to create a mathematical equation that will predict the success of romantic relationships.
Green's next novel was a collaboration with fellow young adult authors Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle titled Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances, released in September 2008.
Paper Towns was released in October 2008. It explores the relationship between high-school seniors Quentin and Margo. Quentin has secretly loved Margo for years. After joining Quentin in some pranks, Margo disappears. However, she leaves clues for Quentin to help him find her. Although the two are eventually reunited, they ultimately decide to go their separate ways. Paper Towns won a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award in 2009 for best young adult book. It was made into a film in 2015.
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After this, Green and fellow young-adult writer David Levithan collaborated on the novel Will Grayson, Will Grayson, which was published by Dutton in April 2010. Set in the suburbs of Chicago, the book's narrative is divided evenly between two boys named Will Grayson; Green wrote the odd chapters on the Will Grayson who is straight, and Levithan wrote the even chapters on the Will Grayson who is gay. The novel debuted on The New York Times children's best-seller list after its release and remained there for three weeks. The novel relates the story of two extremely different teenagers who are both named Will Grayson. Their lives become intertwined after they meet.
Green had announced in August 2009 he was writing a new book titled The Sequel. The work was later scrapped, with parts integrated into his next book, The Fault in Our Stars, released on January 10, 2012.
Green’s next book, The Fault in Our Stars, was published in 2012 and was turned into a film in 2014. Green's fourth solo novel, the story is about Hazel, a 16-year-old girl living in Indianapolis, Indiana, who has thyroid cancer. She is forced by her parents to attend a support group where she meets and falls in love with 17-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player, amputee, and survivor of osteosarcoma. It explores the relationship between two teenagers battling cancer. Green was inspired by his friendship with Esther Earl, as well as his time working as a student chaplain in a children's hospital. The Fault in Our Stars was massively successful, creating a passionate fan base of readers. Six months before the release of the book, before it had even been finished, online pre-orders led to the book being a number one seller on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. After release, the book debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list for children's chapter books. Green himself also saw a significant increase in his fame, with the Indianapolis Business Journal noting that he had much more "visibility and presence in his fans' lives" than other contemporaneous authors with equal or greater book sales. Upon the book's release, Green began a 17-city book tour, visiting largely sold-out venues across the country. On the first anniversary of its release, John and his brother Hank performed a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall's Isaac Stern Auditorium in New York City, which also featured appearances from Neil Gaiman and The Mountain Goats. Green appeared on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson in March 2013. A film adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars was green-lit within three weeks of the book's release. Green had initially been hesitant to sell the movie rights for the book, saying, "I'd had some unhappy experiences before, and I didn't want a movie I didn't like being made from a book that's so important to me. This book frankly is more important to me than my other books." To that end, Green was involved in the movie's pre-production, and was on set for most of the film's shooting. The Hollywood Reporter stated in May 2014 that even before the movie's release, its expected success was causing a shift in the types of films being made for teenagers, with Pouya Shahbazian, the producer of the dystopian science fiction film Divergent, stating, "I've already had calls from studio execs who want to be on the list for small, intimate stories that previously would have been impossible to sell to their senior execs.
In November 2014, amidst the intense success of The Fault in Our Stars, Green wrote on his Tumblr page that he was not working on his previously announced next project, The Racket, anymore, but was working on something else with a different title. In September 2015, Green announced that he would be taking a break from social media to focus on writing his next book. Around this time, Green experienced a period of severe anxiety, partly due to the perceived burden to follow up the massive success of The Fault in Our Stars.
Turtles All the Way Down was published in 2017. On June 22, 2017, it was announced that Green's fifth solo novel would be titled Turtles All the Way Down. Upon the release of his book, he and his brother Hank went on a book tour. In May 2018, Green was interviewed by then-quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, Andrew Luck, after Turtles All the Way Down was named a selection for the Andrew Luck Book Club. It deals with mental illness. The story is told from the perspective of Aza, who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and comes to realize that she must learn to accept her illness in order to lead a fulfilling life. A film adaptation debuted in 2024.
VlogBrothers, Crash Course, and Podcasts: Expanding Educational Reach
In 2007, John and his brother Hank began a video blog project called Brotherhood 2.0 which ran from January 1 to December 31 of that year and was published to their YouTube channel "Vlogbrothers". The two agreed that they would forgo all text-based communication for the project's duration and instead maintain their relationship by exchanging these vlogs. The videos spawned a community of people called nerdfighters who fight to decrease the overall worldwide level of suck. The group, in collaboration with the two brothers, promote and participate in several other humanitarian efforts and community events, including loaning more than $4 million through Kiva.org, as well as the Project for Awesome (P4A). The Project for Awesome is an annual telethon-style fundraiser begun in 2007.
Besides writing, Green has maintained a YouTube video blog with his brother, Hank, called VlogBrothers, which they created in 2007. In 2010, the brothers launched VidCon as a conference for the online video community. The Greens created the conference in response to the growing YouTube community. Hank stated, "We wanted to get as much of the online video community together, in one place, in the real world for a weekend. It's a celebration of the community, with performances, concerts, and parties, but it's also a discussion of the explosion in community-based online video." The event drew many popular YouTubers, as well as their fans, and provided room for the community to interact. In 2010 the brothers cofounded VidCon, an annual conference that allows the online video community to interact in person.
As part of the platform's "YouTube Original Channel Initiative", YouTube approached John and Hank with an opportunity to start a Google-funded channel. YouTube gave the brothers $450,000, which they used to launch the Crash Course YouTube channel. The channel was launched in January 2012, with the first episode of its World History series hosted by John Green. The channel has since grown to 44 series covering topics including history, literature, and science. They and other hosts present lessons in science and humanities fields such as mythology, astronomy, chemistry, history, literature, and government, employing a fast-paced often humorous format that attracted an enthusiastic audience of teenagers.
After two years of producing Crash Course and Hank's science-related channel SciShow through the grants provided by YouTube, the Green brothers sought a more sustainable way to fund the projects. In 2013, they launched Subbable, a subscription-based crowdfunding platform that would enable donators to pledge a monthly sum to creators and receive perks in exchange. Among the platform's creators and channels were the Green brothers' Crash Course and SciShow, and YouTubers CGP Grey, MinutePhysics and Wheezy Waiter. The platform went on to be acquired by fellow subscription-based crowdfunding platform Patreon in March 2015.
They also created an educational channel on YouTube called Crash Course.
Starting in 2012 and 2013, John and Hank began celebrating an event called "Pizzamas" in which they sold merchandise, including t-shirts, featuring "Pizza John": a white outlined image of John sporting a thick mustache, originating from a 2009 Vlogbrothers video that then became a popular meme in the Nerdfighteria community. Starting in 2014, John and Hank began uploading videos to Vlogbrothers every weekday for two weeks during Pizzamas, and began selling more varied merchandise, including fan art of Pizza John printed on blankets, tote bags, and pizza-scented air fresheners.
From 2013 to 2018, Green was one of the hosts of the YouTube channel for the magazine Mental Floss, for whom he had worked when in New York. Green presented "The List Show" in which he listed off interesting facts centered on one particular subject. These episodes were directed by Mark Olsen and produced by John and Hank Green and Stan Muller.
He and his brother began hosting a podcast, Dear Hank & John, in June 2015. Taking a mainly humorous tone, each podcast consists of the brothers reading a series of questions submitted by listeners and offering their "dubious" advice.
From 2018 to 2020 Green had his own podcast called The Anthropocene Reviewed. In January 2018, Green launched The Anthropocene Reviewed, a solo podcast where he reviews different facets of the Anthropocene, the epoch that includes significant human impact on the environment, on a five-star scale. This can include completely artificial products like Diet Dr. Pepper, natural species that have had their fates altered by human influence like the Canada goose, or phenomena that only influence humanity such as Halley's Comet. He adapted some of the podcast episodes into essays that he published in a book of the same name in 2021.
Recognition and Advocacy
Green gave commencement speeches at Butler University in 2013 and at his alma mater Kenyon College in May 2016. In January 2016, Green was named to the Forum of Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum (WEF). He attended the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos, Switzerland that year. In February 2016, Green visited Jordan to meet with Syrian refugees with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Since the mid-2010s, John Green has been a prominent advocate for global health causes: he is a trustee for Partners In Health (PIH), supporting their goal of reducing maternal mortality in Sierra Leone, and has worked with PIH and a number of organizations in fighting tuberculosis worldwide.
Personal Life
Green’s wife, Sarah Urist Green, formerly curator of contemporary art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, is the author of You Are the Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation and the creator of The Art Assignment, an educational video series that seeks to demystify art and art history. John moved back to Indianapolis in 2007. He lives with his wife in Indianapolis, Indiana.
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