About Austin

Born and raised in and around Salt Lake City, Austin (“Aussie”) Hudson spent his childhood doing things that sound borrowed from a young adult book series: camping out in the meerkat enclosure at the zoo, apprenticing as a magician, being temporarily banned from the Utah Museum of Natural History for arguing with a docent, touring Europe, learning karate, and driving cattle on horseback with old ranch hands in central Utah. He burned out promptly as a teenager, then was voted “Mr. Congeniality” by his junior high classmates and “Most Likely to Quit a Job Editing The New York Times to Instead Edit the National Enquirer” by his high school peers.

He earned a Dean’s Scholarship to Westminster College, now Westminster University, where he studied English and psychology, bought an old typewriter from a hippie in a van, served as a supplemental instructor in quantitative research methodology, and co-founded the school’s Soup Club, eating a great deal of soup in the process. There, he developed a lasting interest in storytelling, curiosity as a discipline, and the quiet drama of everyday life. Naturally creative, he took a summer job at an advertising agency, forgot about applying to graduate school, and spent the next decade creating work seen around the world, including, ironically, advertisements placed in The New York Times. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times, among others.

Beyond advertising, his visual art has appeared in an outdoor installation in South Jordan, a hanging in the Cannon House Office Building at the United States Capitol, and several solo installation shows at local museums and city halls. His written work, ranging from essays and columns to travelogues and books of poetry, blends wit, observation, and a belief in the beauty of small things, and has won absolutely no awards whatsoever.

Driven by an almost embarrassing desire to make people happy, Austin was nominated twice for South Jordan’s Community Hero Award, winning in 2017. His nonprofit work in the southwest Salt Lake Valley drew local and national attention, leading to letters of encouragement from around the world, a published profile from his alma mater, guest lectures at local college campuses, segments on local television news, and at least one YouTube video in which a group of elementary school students shout “thank you” at him.

Austin is a humanist, a creator, a provocateur, a reluctant romantic, and an eccentric.