Early career and novels (2001–2006) Booklist magazine and Looking for Alaska In 2001, Green was hired as an editorial assistant at the book review journal
Booklist, later becoming a production editor. Whilst there he reviewed hundreds of books, particularly on literary fiction,
Islam, and
conjoined twins. He also wrote radio essays for
NPR's
All Things Considered and Chicago's public radio station
WBEZ. 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." 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. 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 saw only modest sales at first. 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."
An Abundance of Katherines 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 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. 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. 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.
Online video beginnings 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. , they have continued exchanging their vlogs and the channel has over 3.7 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". 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). and over $3.5 million in 2024. The company now focuses on selling merchandise. In 2010, the brothers launched
VidCon as a conference for the online video community. The event drew many popular YouTubers, as well as their fans, and provided room for the community to interact. The event also contained an industry conference for people and businesses working in the online video field. The convention was a success, leading to it becoming an annual event that was acquired by
Viacom in 2018. The work was later scrapped, with parts integrated into his next book,
The Fault in Our Stars, released on January 10, 2012. 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. Green was inspired by his friendship with Esther Earl, as well as his time working as a student chaplain in a children's hospital. He crafted the novel in collaboration with his long-time editor Julie Strauss-Gabel. Green signed all 150,000 copies of the first printing. '' book tour in 2012|left
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. 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. He sold 5,000 words of a rough draft of the work during that years Project for Awesome. That same year, Green hired long-time Nerdfighter
Rosianna Halse Rojas as his
executive assistant. To that end, Green was involved in the movie's pre-production, and was on set for most of the film's shooting. On June 6, 2014,
The Fault in Our Stars film was released, the first adaptation of one of Green's novels. The film was massively successful, opening number one at the box office during its opening weekend and grossing $307million worldwide against a budget of $12million. Green filmed a cameo role for the movie that was not included in the final cut of the film. The profound success of the book and the movie further launched Green into mainstream culture, an experience he found emotionally fraught. Green was included in
Time magazine's 2014
Time 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The
trade paperback version of
The Fault in Our Stars was the top selling novel of the year on ''
Publishers Weekly's'' annual list. Just over a year after the first film's release,
an adaptation of Paper Towns was released, starring
Cara Delevingne and
Nat Wolff. Green served as an executive producer for the movie and entered into a
first-look production deal with the studio behind the film,
Fox 2000, alongside his now producing partner Rojas. In 2016, Green announced that Fox 2000 would be making a movie about the formation of
AFC Wimbledon, a soccer team that he supports, and he would serve as a producer. , the movie has not been produced.
Focus on educational content 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. John has hosted several of the series, including the first on
world history, which he co-wrote with his high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer. Among the platform's creators and channels were the Green brothers'
Crash Course and
SciShow, and YouTubers
CGP Grey,
MinutePhysics and
Wheezy Waiter. 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. All the proceeds are donated to various charities, including
Partners In Health. In 2019,
Mental Floss brought its YouTube production in-house and ceased using Green as a host. On February 20, 2014, Sarah Urist Green launched
The Art Assignment, a
PBS and
Complexly video series. John served as an executive producer for the series. In September 2019, Sarah Urist Green, in collaboration with John and the
Poetry Foundation, launched the YouTube channel
Ours Poetica. In June 2015, John Green and his brother Hank started a weekly
podcast titled
Dear Hank & John. Complexly became the umbrella
video and
audio production company which produces and manages most of the Green brothers' YouTube shows, as well as a number of other shows, podcasts, and projects. John serves as the co-founder and strategic advisor for the company. '' 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). Green has often acted as an advocate for refugees, stating that "for those of you who share
my faith, Jesus is awfully unambiguous about the poor, shelterless, and imprisoned".
Established author and internet personality (2017–2022) Turtles All the Way Down 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. He worried he might never write another book. But on September 20, Green took to his YouTube channel to say that he may never publish another book, citing his current writing experience as, "this intense pressure, like people were watching over my shoulder while I was writing". He eventually submitted a draft to his editor Strauss-Gabel, and they worked on the book together for another year. and debuted at number one on the
New York Times bestseller list. The story centers on 16-year-old Aza Holmes, an Indianapolis high school student with
obsessive–compulsive disorder and
anxiety, and her search for a fugitive billionaire as she begins a relationship with that billionaire's son. Speaking about the novel, Green said, "This is my first attempt to write directly about the kind of mental illness that has affected my life since childhood, so while the story is fictional, it is also quite personal." 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. They discussed the book and their relationships with anxiety and stress for the event that promoted the
PBS series
The Great American Read.
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. Episodes typically contained Green reviewing two topics, accompanied by stories on how they have impacted his life. At the end of 2018, the Green brothers partnered with
WNYC Studios to bring all of their podcasts, including
The Anthropocene Reviewed, to the distributor. Green adapted the essays into a book,
The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet, which was published by Dutton Penguin on May 18, 2021. The book was Green's first nonfiction book and sixth solo publication. The book received positive reviews and debuted at number one on
The New York Times Best Seller list. The book featured revised versions of many of the essays from the podcast, as well as new original essays, ordered chronologically through Green's life to give the book the approximate structure of a memoir. Green wrote about living through the
COVID-19 pandemic in many of the essays. As he had done with many of his previous books, Green signed all 250,000
tip-in sheets of the first printing for the United States and Canada. He wrote a review of the experience on the final signed page. This review was later revised and expanded on for an episode of the podcast released on the same day as the book. Green subsequently ended the podcast in August 2021 after 36 episodes. In May 2021, Green hosted a virtual book tour for
The Anthropocene Reviewed, with guests
Clint Smith,
Latif Nasser, Sarah Urist Green, Hank Green, and
Ashley C. Ford making appearances at the various shows. In April 2022,
The Anthropocene Reviewed was chosen to be the 2022
common read at the
University of Mississippi. Green gave a
keynote address at the university's annual fall convocation.
Further adaptations '' (left to right):
Kristine Froseth,
Charlie Plummer, Jay Lee, and
Denny Love, on
Vlogbrothers in 2019|left Green had sold the film the rights for
Looking for Alaska in 2005 to Paramount, which hired
Josh Schwartz as writer and director. However, after five years with no progress on the project, Green told fans that, while he "desperately loved" the screenplay, there seemed to be little interest at Paramount. In 2012, the book reached
The New York Times Best Seller list for children's paperbacks. Finally, in May 2018, it was announced that
Looking for Alaska would be made into a
Hulu series with Schwartz and others on board. The casting was announced in October 2018.
Looking for Alaska was released to Hulu on October 18, 2019. The series was critically well-received, with Kathryn VanArendonk of
Vulture calling it a "rare adaptation that dismantles the original in order to build something that works better". In 2017, Green authorized a
stage play adaptation of
The Fault in Our Stars. The play was written by theatre director Tobin Strader of
Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis and four students at the high school. It was performed in 2019. In 2019,
Let It Snow was adapted into
a film of the same name by
Netflix. On
Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on reviews from five critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". In August 2014, India's
Fox Star Studios announced it would adapt
The Fault in Our Stars into an Indian
Hindi-language film, with the working title of
Kizie Aur Manny. The adaptation ages up the characters and changes the main setting to India. The title of the movie was later changed to
Dil Bechara (
"The Helpless Heart") and is named after one of the original songs written for the movie. Music composer
A. R. Rahman composed the background music and songs of the movie. The film was scheduled to be released on May 8, 2020, after having been initially scheduled in November 2019, but was later postponed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic in India. It was released on July 24, 2020, on
Disney+ Hotstar and was met with mainly positive reviews. The 2020 Chinese film
A Little Red Flower has been noted for having significant similarities to
The Fault in Our Stars, which was never theatrically released in China. A Chinese remake of
The Fault in Our Stars had been in development by
Fox International Productions in 2016. In 2018, a notice was released by the
China Film Administration for a project with a similar premise and the same writers and producers to the original remake, and in 2020,
A Little Red Flower was released with no credit given to Fox.
Partners In Health Since the mid-2010s, John and Hank Green and their families have supported the international public health nonprofit
Partners In Health (PIH). Beginning with the annual Project for Awesome fundraiser in 2013, Partners In Health received $50,000 as one of the community-chosen charities. The charity was first selected as one of the "designated charities" the following year, meaning Green and the other organizers had chosen for it to receive a large portion of the funds raised, totaling $291,000. It was again selected as a designated charity in 2016 before becoming a permanent designated charity in every iteration of the fundraiser since 2018. The book club read a book approximately every 6 weeks, with online discussion occurring on the Life's Library
Discord. Green and Rojas alternated choosing books, with guest curators occasionally making selections. (now known as Sierra Leone Psychiatric Hospital) in
Freetown, Sierra Leone, in April 2019 John and Sarah Urist Green visited
Sierra Leone in April 2019 after John was inspired by a December 2017 profile in
The New Yorker on PIH co-founder
Ophelia Dahl. In October 2019, Green announced that he, Hank, and their families would be donating $6.5 million to
Sierra Leone's branch of Partners In Health, as part of an initiative to raise $25 million over the following five years. The goal of the initiative is to help fight
maternal mortality, specifically in the country's
Kono District, where the money will be used to staff and support the Maternal Center of Excellence, among other primary care centers and health workers. The
Paul E. Farmer Maternal Center of Excellence, named for the late PIH co-founder, broke ground in April 2021 and opened to patients in February 2026. John and Hank Green, their families, and the Nerdfighteria community raised approximately $50 million for the hospital's construction, supplies, and training of staff. The live performances returned in March 2020 with a planned three-city tour including stops in
Columbus, Ohio, and
Carmel, Indiana, with a third performance set for
Ann Arbor, Michigan. However, the third performance was cancelled due to the onset of the
COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In September 2021, Green continued his advocacy for refugees, writing an op-ed in
The Independent on the need for education for
refugee children.
Subscription services and Good Store In November 2020, John and Hank started the "Awesome Socks Club", a monthly
subscription service where members receive a pair of socks designed by independent artists. All post-tax profits are donated to the charity, in a business model similar to
Newman's Own products. In March 2022, the brothers started the "Awesome Coffee Club", with an identical business model and goal to the Awesome Socks Club. In August 2022, Hank Green reported that the Awesome Socks Club had over 40,000 subscribers and the Awesome Coffee Club had over 10,000 subscribers. A third subscription, called "Sun Basin Soap", was announced in April 2023. These products were brought under the common branding and website of "Good.Store" in August 2023. As of August 2025, Good Store had donated over $10 million in operating profits. This included $75,000 donated to the
Coral Reef Alliance.
Appearances and other projects On January 1, 2017, Green began a YouTube series titled "100 Days" in collaboration with his friend Chris Waters. The pair endeavored to get fit and establish healthy habits, while avoiding emphasis on
weight loss. Near the end of the effort, Green fundraised for a
10K charity run for
Exodus Refugee Immigration, an Indianapolis-based refugee resettlement organization. In January 2019, Green wrote an
op-ed for
The Washington Post on his decision, saying, "I had noticed over the past couple of years that my attention had become more fractured. I found it harder to lose myself in a book, for instance, without feeling the urge to check my phone or open my laptop." Green created a
TikTok account in 2020, which has over 2 million followers and 48 million views . Green is a frequent lecturer and moderated discussion host. In March 2019, Green moderated a discussion with former
First Lady Michelle Obama on her memoir
Becoming as part of a YouTube-sponsored event titled "
BookTube". In April 2019, Green recorded a live version of the podcast
Harry Potter and the Sacred Text at the
Indianapolis Central Public Library. Green gave a virtual commencement address to all graduates in May 2020 during the beginning months of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Focus on global health (2022–present) Anti-tuberculosis advocacy Green became a member of the
board of trustees for Partners in Health in 2022. In mid-2023, Green was a leading figure in a successful campaign to persuade pharmaceutical company
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to allow
generic versions of the
tuberculosis drug
bedaquiline to be produced, allowing increased global access to the drug. In May, Green published an op-ed in
The Washington Post on the subject. A deal with the
Stop TB Partnership was formed after J&J's
evergreening of the patent received public backlash from an
awareness campaign started by Green in June; J&J stated they had decided to allow generics to be produced the month prior. Two months later, Green urged
Cepheid, an American molecular diagnostics company owned by
Danaher Corporation, to
lower the cost of the cartridges used in their GeneXpert machines to $5, hoping to save lives by giving more people access to early detection of tuberculosis. On September 22, 2023, Green attended, and briefly spoke at, a high-level
United Nations meeting on tuberculosis. In March 2024, the Green brothers announced that they and their families were pledging $1 million a year through 2027 alongside $10 million provided by
USAID and $11 million matched by the
Department of Health in the Philippines to address tuberculosis in
the Philippines. That same month, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) named John Green a 2024 "TB Elimination Champion" and he published another op-ed in
The Washington Post on the need for greater access to tuberculosis diagnostics in poorer countries. In October 2024, Green announced his second nonfiction book would be titled
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. The book was published on March 18, 2025, through Crash Course Books, a new imprint of
Penguin Young Readers that is an extension of the
Crash Course YouTube channel. The book tells the history of human responses to tuberculosis intertwined with the story of Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient Green met in Sierra Leone in 2019, through which Green asserts that the disease is not primarily caused by the bacteria
Mycobacterium tuberculosis anymore but by human choices. The book was
a New York Times number-one bestseller in nonfiction for multiple weeks, remaining on the list for 23 weeks.
Hollywood, Ending In December 2025, Green announced he had been working on a new novel about Hollywood, although he stated he was unsure when or if it would be released. He had earlier told
The New York Times that the book he was working on would be "about and for grown-ups". In March 2026, he announced that his next novel, titled
Hollywood, Ending would be released in September 2026. The story centers on two young actors and how their lives change through their roles in a
biopic about
Andy Warhol.
Other efforts In January 2023, John and Hank announced that
Crash Course would be offering college courses on YouTube, in continued partnership with
Arizona State University and Google, with the project's main goal being to lower the monetary barriers to receive college credit. In May 2023, Hank announced he had
Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer that affects the
lymphatic system. While Hank received
chemotherapy and recovered, John took over Hank's role as CEO for their companies DFTBA and Complexly. Laura Joukovski took over the role of CEO at DFTBA in August 2023, and Julie Walsh Smith took over the role of CEO at Complexly in October 2023. Green had announced in December 2017 that
a film adaptation of Turtles All The Way Down was in development by Fox 2000 and
Temple Hill Productions. In May 2018, Green confirmed that the film adaptation would be written by Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, the screenwriters for
Love, Simon. In January 2019, it was announced that
Hannah Marks would direct the movie. After Fox 2000 was closed as part of the
acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, the film was put on hold. In March 2022, it was announced the film had switched studios to
New Line Cinema and would be released on the
streaming service HBO Max. The film, starring
Isabela Merced, began filming in April 2022. Green and Rosianna Halse Rojas served as executive producers.
Turtles All the Way Down was released on
Max on May 2, 2024. Green makes a cameo appearance in the film as Mr. Adler, a gym teacher at the protagonists' high school. == Influence and reception ==