Dear John Green

Um, hi. It's always awkward starting these things. My name is Anna Grace. I'm a teenage nerdfighter and expat. There's not much that I'd rather do than read and write, although being able to do it whenever I want to is definitely one of the ways that I can keep in practice. You know what they say! Practice makes perfect. I'm sorry if this letter doesn't make sense. I've written this letter at least a thousand times, trying to figure out what to say.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about.

John (may I call you John?), when I stumbled upon your book, Looking for Alaska, and then TFIOS and later An Abundance of Katherines, I knew that I needed to figure out how you wrote all of these meaningful and amazing books. That's when I stumbled upon your brother's musical about Tumblr. I saw that his last name was the same as your's, and I just had to know more. By this point in my life, I didn't know that I was a nerd. I just thought that I was really weird and didn't really belong. That was essentially my introduction to Nerdfighteria. Then I found CrashCourse, but that's a story for later.

You showed me that YouTube wasn't all bad. That it wasn't all weird and full of strange swear words that I didn't know. You showed me that writing isn't a waste of time. That it's ok to be weird and nerdy in the literature and history type way. You, you changed my life in such a way that I just feel like this letter doesn't do it justice. 

There was this one part of my life, it wasn't the best part, and you helped. You didn't even know it! 

I wasn't clinically depressed. They call it situational depression. It's basically depression caused by certain events. Reading your books, it was both therapy and made me need therapy. Your videos were so encouraging and uplifting, even if it was about Ebola. You gave me hope, and hope was just what I needed at that point in my life.

So thank you John. Thank you, and DFTBA.

Anna Grace

(Want to reply? I know it's not especially good to put my email on the Internet, but whatever. atomic.annagrace@gmail.com)