J. D. Austin was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and has been moving gradually north since the age of fourteen. After dropping out of college in November of 2019, he worked as a kayak guide, a wedding server, bar security, a lighting designer, a stage carpenter, a ski technician, and in the nursery department at a Home Depot. His fiction has appeared in The Incandescent Review and The U. P. Reader Volume Seven. His story Free in the Harbor was nominated locally for the 2024 Pushcart Prize. The Last Huck is his first novel.