Alan Austin’s life has been dominated from a very early age with images and words. He was born in a Catholic home for un-wed mothers and was adopted by a globe- trotting mother and father He developed a penchant for writing about and photographing his experiences in France, Italy, Germany, England and all over the United States. He was especially intrigued by the French and American Film Noir genre of films and books. The French were very influenced by American films of late 30’s, 40’s and 50’s and made some wonderful films under that influence. His perspective on film, literature and art took on a new aspect after coming back from Europe.
As an adult he went back to Europe on several occasions and worked as a fashion photographer and did some acting. He’s published a photo book called Los Angeles Afternoons. He worked quite extensively as an actor in Los Angeles and in New York, where he was on the guiding light for two and half years. Acting is, of course a brutal and incredibly fickle business – where most of the time you’re not working. He supported himself for years as a pilot, having learned to fly at an early age with his globe -trotting family who owned a small airplane.
He’s been writing since college where he earned a double Master’s degree in Contemporary World Literature and Philosophy. His master’s thesis was written on a Japanese film called Women of The Dunes- which was adapted from Kōbō Abe’s book of the same name. He’s written four novels – a detective mystery series called Nicholas Germain Mysteries and a satire written from his own experience as a pilot for a very crazy Catch 22– Caribbean Commuter Airline – called Paradise Air- The Right Stuff meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He has also written four screenplays. Chicane, Mason’s Holiday, The August Strangers and 21 Million. The August Strangers was given to Robert Redford by a DP, who was a friend his, on a film that he was acting in, and the script made it to the finalist stage for Sundance. It also was pitched for some time by Perry Lafferty (former head of Universal’s TV movies) to be made as a TV move. Toni Howard at ICM, gave 21 Million to one of the agents there, who was directed to pitch it to some of their ‘young’ directors. It was also optioned by a small production company based in Beverly Hills. The scripts are resting in peace along with a hundred thousand others in Hollywood!
He has recently charted a course to attain a literary agent and seek publication of his works after many years of them sitting on the shelf. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of America,, SAG and WGA (emeritus) and below is a link to his IMDb page.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1129356/?ref_=fn
Alan is married to Dr. Elizabeth Austin, a world renown atmospheric physicist and forensic meteorologist. She is also an author (http://treadingonthinair.com/) – Represented by The Trident Group in New York. She founded and is the CEO of her company WeatherExtreme Ltd., thirty plus years ago (https://weatherextreme.com/). It has grown into a world -wide business.
Her father Patrick Williams was an Oscar nominated, Emmy and Grammy award winning composer of music, including a tremendous catalog for movies and television. (https://www.patrickwilliamsmusic.com ) The Austin’s have a twenty -year- old son Moody who is attending college. The Austin’s home is in Reno, Nevada. Alan says it’s like living in Mayberry, which he and Elizabeth both appreciated after having lived and travelled all over the world most of their lives.