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YOUNG: It's HERE AND NOW.

You might be a fan of John Green. He is the wildly popular young-adult author and vlogger - video blogger. In fact, the videos he made with his brother launched the online community Nerdfighters. Well, we want to introduce you, posthumously, to a young woman from Quincy, Mass., who adored John Green. She met him at LeakyCon, a convention for "Harry Potter" fans back in 2009.

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ESTHER EARL: I saw John Green! I saw John Green! And then I was like, OK. Well, I really want to take a picture with him. So my sister walked up - because I couldn't talk. I was like (makes gasping sounds) And I was drinking water. My water was like this, in my cup. It was like, shaking all over the place so I had to throw it out. Otherwise, it would spill. (Laughter)

YOUNG: Well, unbeknownst to Esther Earl, author John Green was taken with her as well. Esther Earl was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when she was 12. She was outfitted with breathing tubes, an oxygen tank, confined to her room for much of the time. After their meeting, she inspired John Green's best-selling novel "The Fault In Our Stars." It's soon going to be a movie. It's about a young girl confronting cancer.

And then, before Esther Earl died in 2010 at the age of 16, she inspired thousands more through an online community. Now, Esther's parents are sharing her blog posts, diary entries, their blog posts as well as messages from her friends, in a new book, "This Star Won't Go Out." And Lori and Wayne Earl join us in the studio with more. Welcome.

WAYNE EARL: Thank you.

LORI EARL: Thank you.

YOUNG: It's been a couple of years, but so sorry for your loss. We here in the New England area, you know, were following Esther's story. What was it like for you to read, after she passed, these writings?

WAYNE EARL: Well, it was moving. Of course, all along, I'd read her writings, not her diaries. But I - when she was a little kid, I gave her a book and said, write whatever you want, draw pictures; and I'd love to read whatever you do. Sometimes I take - especially in the last year - take papers out of the trash can and flatten them, and she'd say, Dad, you don't have to do that. But I said, I don't want to miss this.

YOUNG: In other words, you want to keep - read everything, even things she threw out.

WAYNE EARL: Absolutely.

YOUNG: Yeah.

LORI EARL: These were her journals. I think toward the end, she knew that we were going to be reading them and probably writing about...