Background and career
John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author and YouTuber. 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. Green is also well known for his work in online video, most notably his YouTube ventures with his younger brother Hank Green. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Green was raised in Orlando, Florida, before attending boarding school outside of Birmingham, Alabama. 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 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). 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, including VidCon, an annual conference for the online video community, and Crash Course (2012–present), a wide-ranging educational channel. Green's 2012 novel, The Fault in Our Stars, and the 2014 film adaptation were massive commercial and critical successes, leading to several other film and television adaptations of his work. He was included in Time magazine's 2014 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Green's subsequent projects, his novel Turtles All the Way Down (2017) and The Anthropocene Reviewed (2018–2021), dealt more directly with his 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. He adapted the podcast into his first nonfiction book in 2021. 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. Green's second nonfiction book, Everything Is Tuberculosis, was released in March 2025. Green's first novel intended for adults, titled Hollywood, Ending, was released in September 2026.
John Michael Green was born on August 24, 1977, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Mike and Sydney Green. Within two months of his birth, his family moved to Michigan, then later Birmingham, Alabama, and finally to Orlando, Florida. There he attended Glenridge Middle School and Lake Highland Preparatory School. Green's father worked as the state director of The Nature Conservancy in Michigan and Florida, and his mother, after being a stay-at-home mother, worked for a nonprofit called the Healthy Community Initiative. When he was 15, he started attending Indian Springs School outside of Birmingham, Alabama, graduating in 1995. While attending the preparatory school, Green became good friends with Daniel Alarcón, who would go on to become an author as well. Green's future wife Sarah Urist also attended Indian Springs at the same time as Green, though they did not become friends until they became reacquainted in the early 2000s. Green has characterized his upbringing by saying that "although he had a happy childhood, [...] he was not always a happy child." Green has struggled with severe anxiety and obsessive–compulsive disorder his whole life. He has also spoken about being bullied during high school and how it made life as a teenager miserable for him. Green enrolled at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, in 1995, graduating with a double major in English and religious studies in 2000. While attending the school, he befriended and was in a comedy troupe with Ransom Riggs. After graduation, 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. He intended to become an Episcopal priest, but the traumatic experiences of working in a hospital with children suffering from life-threatening illnesses and injuries made him reconsider his path. Parts of his experience inspired him to become an author, and later to write The Fault in Our Stars. After his time as a chaplain, Green moved to Chicago where he briefly continued performing with his college comedy troupe.
In 2001, Green was hired as an editorial assistant at the book review journal Booklist, later becoming a production editor. While there he reviewed hundreds of books, particularly on literary fiction, Islam, boxing, and conjoined twins. He also wrote radio essays for NPR's All Things Considered and Chicago's public radio station WBEZ. He wrote essays for WBEZ after beginning an email correspondence with Amy Krouse Rosenthal, who became a close friend and mentor. 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. 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. The structure was partially inspired by Green's reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, months prior, and its status as a dividing line in history and in people's lives. 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, which 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. I wouldn't know how to do it." 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 was well-received critically, but initially saw only modest sales. The novel was awarded the annual Michael L. Printz Award by the American Library Association (ALA), recognizing the year's "best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit". 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. Even when my children were born it wasn't as raw and surprising." It also appeared on the ALA's annual "Top 10 Best Books for Young Adults" and appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list seven years later during a surge in Green's popularity after the release of The Fault in Our Stars. Green left his job at Booklist after receiving the Printz Award.
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? and Scatterbrained. He also critiqued books for The New York Times Book Review. His second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, was released in September 2006. Set in Chicago, the novel is about an extremely intelligent but depressed 17-year-old boy who is constantly dating (and being dumped by) girls named Katherine. Reviewers noted that the book's tone was significantly more comedic and light than Looking for Alaska. It was runner-up for the Printz Award, and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Green began writing his third solo novel while still living in New York.
Green moved back to Indianapolis in June 2007 when Sarah began a position as a curator of contemporary art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. In an interview in October 2007, Green mentioned that his next solo novel's working title was Paper Towns. 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. The book consists of three interconnected short stories, including Green's "A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle", with each set in the same small town on Christmas Eve during a massive snowstorm. In November 2009, the book reached number ten on The New York Times Best Seller list for paperback children's books. Green's third solo novel, Paper Towns, was released in October 2008. Set in the suburbs of Orlando, Florida, the book is about the coming-of-age of the protagonist, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen, and his search for Margo Roth Spiegelman, his neighbor and childhood sweetheart. The story has often been described as a deconstruction of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" trope, including by Green himself. It debuted at number five on The New York Times Best Seller list for children's books. Paper Towns was awarded the 2009 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel and the 2010 Corine Literature Prize. After this, Green and fellow young-adult writer David Levithan collaborated on the novel Will Grayson, Will Grayson, which Dutton published 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. It was the first LGBT-themed young adult novel to make it to the list. It was a runner-up for two of the annual ALA awards: the Stonewall Book Award for excellence in LGBT children's and young adult literature, and the Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production.
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. Each submitted one to the other on alternating weekdays. The brothers gained a large following during the early years of YouTube, especially after Hank's video "Accio Deathly Hallows" was featured on the front page of YouTube. In what would have been the project's final video, the brothers revealed that they would extend their video correspondence indefinitely. As of July 2026, they have continued exchanging their vlogs and the channel has over 4.1 million subscribers and 1 billion views. Since the project's inception, the duo has gained a wide-reaching international fanbase whose members identify collectively as "Nerdfighters". One prominent early Nerdfighter was Esther Earl, who developed a bond with the Green brothers and the Nerdfighter community before she died in 2010 at the age of sixteen of thyroid cancer. Green and the Nerdfighteria community continue to celebrate "Esther Day" each year on August 3, and support the non-profit foundation This Star Won't Go Out, founded by Esther's parents Wayne and Lori Earl. Green wrote the introduction to Earl's biography and has stated that Earl was an inspiration for the main character Hazel in The Fault in Our Stars. 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. The event includes a 48-hour livestream in which charities are voted on by the community while supporters pledge money and receive donated perks, such as artwork or digital content. The livestream is hosted by the Greens and other YouTube personalities, including Destin Sandlin and Phil Plait. The event has continued annually, gaining support and higher donations over time, raising over $3 million in 2023 and over $3.5 million in 2024. Hank Green and Alan Lastufka co-founded DFTBA Records (an initialism for "Don't Forget to Be Awesome") in 2008, with John Green later becoming a co-owner. Originally a record label, its main focus was music generated by prominent YouTube stars. The company now focuses on selling merchandise.
