The applause was deafening in the Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Arts as author John Green took the stage Tuesday night. The crowd of over 1,000, already eager to hear from Green, welcomed him with laughter and cheers when he began his speech with a joke about the room’s low lighting.
“Thank you for bringing the house lights down,” he said. “Thank god, that was terrifying. So much better when I can’t see y’all — nothing personal.”
Green’s appearance came in partnership with the UF Performing Arts department and the Lynx Bookstore, a local woman-owned store Green said Gainesville residents are lucky to have. The event was the seventh of the author’s “Hollywood, Ending” tour to promote the novel released Sept. 22, which Green called a love letter to movies.
Last week’s release marks Green’s first adult fiction novel and his return from a nine-year fiction hiatus. His previous work consists of six young-adult novels, like “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Looking For Alaska,” and two nonfiction works, “Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection” and “The Anthropocene Reviewed.”
“Hollywood, Ending” tells the story of two up-and-coming actors — Kai and Juniper — as they navigate the perils and excitement of fame after being cast in an Andy Warhol biopic. From Green’s perspective, they are trying to find their place in “the machine that turns human experience into movie tickets.”
“But as I was writing the story, I realized I was writing not just about that machine, but also about something deeper and more important,” he said, “which is how we survive all that we have to survive, how we find the loving relationships that can sustain us.”
A lively evening
Tuesday’s laughter-filled event was moderated by Paige Lewis, an author and University of Iowa professor Green called one of his ”favorite writers and people in the world.”
The pair covered a range of topics, from Green’s Orlando childhood to his admiration for the movie-making process. Overwhelmingly, though, the event revolved around Green’s appreciation for creativity.
“Art is not a luxury good; it’s essential to the human experience,” he said in his opening remarks. “I know there is a cost to making it, but art is worth it.”
Green felt the cost himself in the form of the internal conflict he felt after releasing his latest young-adult novel, “Turtles All the Way Down,” in which he portrayed his experiences with obsessive compulsive disorder in the main character, Aza.
While the positive feedback he received from others with OCD helped him feel less alone, he said, putting his anxieties on the page made him feel vulnerable.
“I am distressed by some of the ways that creative projects are commercialized and especially distressed by the way private experience is turned into public discourse, feeding the attention economy in the hopes that our private traumas and pain will sell movie tickets,” he said.
The moderated conversation was followed by a role play from two audience members of a short scene written by Green about a dystopian world. The selected attendees stole the show, cracking ad-libbed jokes and seemingly taking creative liberties with their acting.
Another interactive activity followed, where Green invited eight other audience members to participate in a fake press conference with himself and his publicist, Elyse Marshall Pfeiffer, to whom “Hollywood, Ending” is dedicated. The participants were given pre-approved questions and fake media credentials for news outlets like The Alligator.
One question asked Green about how to maintain hope today. Green admitted despair follows him “like a zombie apocalypse virus,” but he said the feeling doesn’t tell the full story. Humanity has its beauties and its faults, Green said, and people need to hold onto both.
“We can be good news for the most vulnerable among us, and at the same time, we fail over and over and over again,” he said. “I don't know how to hold those things. I just know that we have to.”
In his closing remarks, Green encouraged audience members to keep creating.
“Art is worth it, just as life is worth it,” he said.
Audiences react
The applause following the author’s final speech was just as loud, if not louder, than when he entered, and Green kept one hand over his heart as he waved to the audience and retreated backstage.
Caroline Wheeler-Hollis, a 24-year-old UF graduate and Gainesville teacher, was drawn to tears by Green’s concluding words. The audience was there together trying to find meaning, she said, and Green’s words delivered.
“I think he's got a really profound way of viewing the world,” she said. “He speaks just like he writes, and that's really beautiful.”
Wheeler-Hollis named one of Green’s nonfiction works, “Everything is Tuberculosis,” her favorite novel of his — and other attendees agreed.
Daniela Drazan, a 62-year-old middle school librarian who traveled from Ocala to see Green, said she read “Everything is Tuberculosis” with her book club, and she might read “Hollywood, Ending” after enjoying the event.
“His presentation was wonderful,” she said.
Jen Ambrosia, a 52-year-old Ocala resident and member of Drazan’s book club, said her favorite part of the event was when Green directed audience members in singing a short rendition of “We’re here because we’re here.” Getting over 1,000 people to harmonize was impressive, she said, and emphasizes the power of unity.
“Somehow, when you all do something together, it does make you feel hopeful because being individualistic isn't going to get us very far in changing things,” she said.
Contact Erica Dybas at edybas@alligator.org. Follow her on X @erica_dybas.
Contact Maria Arruda at marruda@alligator.org. Follow her on X @mariazalfaarruda.
Maria Arruda is a journalism and political science junior and the Fall 2026 University Editor. Across two consecutive semesters, Maria served as the student government and city commission reporter, respectively. This past summer, she worked as a communications intern in Paris, and in her free time, she enjoys reading and exercising.
Erica Dybas is a first-year journalism major at UF and this Fall's Graduate School Reporter. This is her first semester at The Alligator. If she is not writing, you can find her reading, working out, or listening to punk music.
