Entertainment Weekly - October 20, 2017

GOING GREEN

In addition to writing novels,

John and his brother, Hank,

stay busy with other projects

CRASH COURSE

EDUCATIONAL VIDEO SERIES

This YouTube channel presents

humanities and science classes

taught by the Greens and other

hosts, such as Dr. Shini Somara.

DEAR HANK & JOHN

WEEKLY PODCAST

Each episode of the podcast—

which the brothers started

back in 2015—almost always

begins with John reading

a poem and features fun advice

and news segments.

PROJECT FOR AWESOME

CHARITY MOVEMENT

Nerdfighters promote their

favorite charities for the

Greens’ annual December

project, which raised more

than $2 million last year.

VIDCON

ONLINE-VIDEO CONFERENCE

Created “for people who love

online video,” VidCon is the

largestconferenceofitskind,

bringing together tens of thou-

sands of community members.

VLOGBROTHERS

VIDEO BLOG

The Greens still post vlogs

twiceaweekontheiroriginal

YouTube site for more than

3 million subscribers.

again. This was a hard book to
write, but as much as it was
painful and I cried a lot, I loved
feeling like I was with these kids.

All the young characters in your
books are so kind.
I want to write about kids who
care about each other—even
when it’s hard and super frustrat-
ing and you break down that
your best friend is like mustard.

In the novel, when Aza
hears herself described like
mustard—”great in small quanti-
ties, but a lot of you is a lot”—
it’s heartbreaking.
Someone said that to me once.
It’s such a horrible thing!
I remember hearing it and just
being like,ugh.

When did you become aware
that you had OCD?
I had a happy childhood even

though I was kind of an unhappy

child. I think I knew there

were issues when I was in high

school and college. I had a bad

year my first year out of college

and got into a really bad situation.

How so?

I was not able to control or

choose my thoughts. It’s exhaust-

ing. You feel like a passenger

in your own consciousness.

Even the idea of self becomes

slippery. When I was in my mid-

20s I started taking it seriously.

I would love to tell a story where

I had a health problem and then

I got better and could tell this

story in the past tense. My per-

sonal story is more side-wavy

than it is a story of triumphing.

I don’t have an expectation at

this point that I’ll recover. Though

that would be cool. [Laughs]

I would besuperpsyched not

to have this.

I NEED TO

TRY AND FIND

EXPRESSION

FOR THIS

WAY-DOWN

TERROR THAT

CONTROLS

SO MUCH OF MY

DAILY LIFE.”

—JOHN GREEN

O D N S N T S Y ” N 

John and Hank Green

THE GREENS: FILMMAGIC/FILMMAGIC

96 EW.COM OCTOBER 20/27, 2017