John Green
John Michael Green (born August 24, 1977) is an American author and YouTube content creator. He won the 2006 Printz Award for his debut novel, Looking for Alaska,[2] and both his fourth solo novel, The Fault in Our Stars, and first nonfiction book, The Anthropocene Reviewed, debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.[3] The 2014 film adaptation opened at number one at the box office.[4] In 2014, Green was included in Time magazine’s list of The 100 Most Influential People in the World.[5] Another film based on a Green novel, Paper Towns, was released on July 24, 2015.
Aside from being a novelist, Green is also well known for his online content creation, most notably his YouTube ventures. In 2007, he launched the Vlogbrothers channel with his brother, Hank Green. Since then, John and Hank have launched events such as Project for Awesome and VidCon and created a total of 11 online series, including Crash Course, an educational channel teaching literature, history, science, and other topics.[6] John also hosts the weekly comedy podcast Dear Hank & John and the monthly essay podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed, both of which the brothers have gone on tour and performed live versions of.
Green was born on August 24, 1977, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Mike and Sydney Green (born 1952).[7] Three weeks after he was born, his family moved to Michigan, then later Birmingham, Alabama, and finally to Orlando, Florida.[8][9] He attended Glenridge Middle School and Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando.[10] He later attended Indian Springs School outside of Birmingham, Alabama, graduating in 1995.[11] He used Indian Springs as the inspiration for the main setting of his first book, Looking for Alaska.[12][13] Green graduated from Kenyon College in 2000 with a double major in English and religious studies.[14] He has spoken about being bullied and how it had made life as a teenager miserable for him.[15]
After graduating from college, Green spent five months 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).[16] He intended to become an Episcopal priest, but his experiences of working in a hospital with children suffering from life-threatening illnesses inspired him to become an author, and later to write The Fault in Our Stars.[17]
Green lived for several years in Chicago, where he worked for the book review journal Booklist as a publishing assistant and production editor while writing Looking for Alaska.[9] While there, he reviewed hundreds of books, particularly literary fiction and books about Islam or conjoined twins.[18] He has also critiqued books for The New York Times Book Review and created original radio essays for NPR’s All Things Considered and WBEZ, Chicago’s public radio station.[18] Green later lived in New York City for two years while his wife attended graduate school.[19]
Green’s first novel, Looking for Alaska, published by Dutton Children’s Books in 2005, is a school story and teen romance inspired by his experiences at Indian Springs, Alabama, fictionalized as Culver Creek Preparatory High School.[20] The novel was awarded the annual Michael L. Printz Award by the American Library Association, recognizing the year’s “best book written for teens, based entirely on its literary merit.”[2] It also appeared on the ALA’s annual list, “Top 10 Best Books for Young Adults.” The film rights were purchased in 2005 by Paramount, which hired Josh Schwartz as writer and director, but five years later, with no progress on the project, Green told fans that, while he “desperately loved” the screenplay, there seemed to be little interest at Paramount.[21] As sales of Looking for Alaska continued to increase in 2011, Green showed mixed feelings about a movie, which he felt would threaten readers’ “intense and private connection to the story.”[22] In 2012, the book reached The New York Times Best Seller list for children’s paperbacks.[23] In May 2018, it was announced that Looking for Alaska would be made into a Hulu series with Schwartz and others on board.[24][25] The casting was announced in October 2018.[26] Looking for Alaska was released to Hulu on October 18, 2019.[27]
Green’s second novel, An Abundance of Katherines (Dutton, 2006) was a runner-up for the Printz Award and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.[28] Starting with An Abundance of Katherines, each of Greens books contains the word “deadpan” exactly once as an easter egg .[29]
