Alex Matthew Langston was born in Rock Island, Illinois in 1988 to Scott and Kimberly Langston, both of whom were government employees at the Rock Island Arsenal. His older brother, Austin, was Kimberly’s son from her first marriage. Within five years of Alex being born, Scott and Kimberly had two more children, Andrew and Elizabeth. In fall of 1995, the family moved to Kekaha, Kauai, Hawaii, where Scott began working as a civilian with the Navy at the Pacific Missile Range Facility. Alex attended Kekaha Elementary and Waimea Middle Schools on Kauai. During middle school, he began writing poetry and lyrics, as well as playing the bass guitar.
Half way through his freshman year at Waimea High School, Scott and Kimberly decided it would be best for the family to be back on the main land of the U.S. to be closer to the children’s aging grandparents. Shortly after moving to Brunswick, GA, where Scott worked as a civilian with the Marines at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, Kimberly’s father, Robert Ewing, was diagnosed with lung cancer and passed away. Having spent little time with extended family throughout his life because of their being in the mid-west, the loss had a profound impact on Alex.
The family became restless after only a year and a half in Georgia. Scott was no longer interested in working with the military and took a job with Indian Health Services in Window Rock, Arizona. The Langston family moved to Gallup, New Mexico, a short drive from Window Rock. It was in Gallup that Alex wrote what would later become his first two self published pieces, “From Couch to Couch, Never Leaving the House” and “Four”. While attending Gallup High School, Alex met other students that would become some of the closest friends he’d had since he lived in Hawaii almost two years before. Those friends also had great influence on his writing, music making, and other artistic works. Alex would go on to host the youth radio program at University of New Mexico Gallup, along with a few of those friends.
In Winter of 2006, just before graduating high school, Alex briefly met his future wife, Katie Lawrence, at a birthday party. They would meet again at the UNM radio station, where they quickly became close friends and started dating. After a brief trip to help the rest of his family move to Columbia, South Carolina in the summer of 2008, Alex got a studio apartment in Albuquerque and began attending Central New Mexico Community College, majoring in Sociology. A few months later, Katie moved in with him and began attending the University of New Mexico. They married in October of 2013, after Alex had left school to work as an entry level System Administrator to support them.
In late 2016, due in part to minor hearing loss and tinnitus, Alex moved his focus away from making music and began to devote as much time to writing as possible. He completed his second poetry collection, “That Which Gets in the Way” between winter 2016 and summer 2017. During that time he also began work on two of his first novels, “40×491” and “Falderal”, due out in 2018.
As of 2024, after a number of other additions to his library of works, Langston relocated to Bowling Green, Ohio. He now resides there with his wife and two sons.
A. M. Langston 