Andrew Austin grew up in Youngstown, New York, the last of six children to a father who comes from Protestant farmland America and a mother who comes from urban Irish Catholic Canada. He lived his childhood within a half hour's drive of Niagara Falls and almost never went to look at it, since, you know, he could see it anytime. His first time away from his parents was basic training in the U.S. Army. He spent two years in the Army to get money for college, and was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. There, in 1984, he began to write the epic poem "The Noteworthy Adventures of the Knights of No Renown," a book he would continue to fiddle with off and on for about 20 years. While in the Army he first got involved in medieval re-enacting. After the Army, he made money for one summer as a waiter and actor in St. Augustine, Florida, and then studied journalism at the State University of New York at Albany and State University of New York College at New Paltz. During this time he continued medieval re-enacting with a new host of friends and studied fencing. New Paltz stands out as one of the great locations of his personal history, since it is there he made his best friends. After graduating in 1990 or 1991 (He is not sure which. He did not even know he had graduated until he watched the ceremony from the sidelines) he embarked on an Odyssey of odd jobs including janitor, nursing home aid, security guard, newspaper reporter, liquor store clerk, home health care aide, stand up comic, kayaking tour guide, freelance writer, and more, possibly setting a record for the largest number of unsuccessful attempts at getting a career rolling. His journey took him to New York City, the northern reaches ofNew York State, Boston, Albany, Buffalo, Virginia, and repeated stops in the Hudson River Valley. He managed to write a how-to book about fencing. Throughout all this he worked sporadically on "The Noteworthy Adventures." Now that that is done, he is at work on memoirs recounting his experiences as a college student and medieval re-enactor in New Paltz, his favorite place in the world.
