Howard Dart Humeston writes novels, short stories, flash fiction, humor, essays, and poetry.
He first dreamed of becoming an author at age seven, perched in the top of a pine tree with his buddy Mario. The two boys took turns making up stories and telling them to each other.
At seventeen, he submitted a terrible science fiction story to Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Thankfully, they promptly rejected it.
He started college, discovered girls, and then came the roller coaster: jobs, marriage, house buying, a better job, a mental health breakdown, divorce, homelessness, finding Jesus, and rebirth.
His employment history reads like a bad Kurt Vonnegut story, one written while a one-eyed, liquored-up raccoon rode on his shoulders and licked his left ear.
That history includes stints as a mid-level manager at an atheist TV preacher’s church in Miami, an automobile photographer for a trade publication, a janitor at a blood plasma donation center, a college library clerk, a copy machine maintenance worker, an ice cream scooper at Baskin-Robbins, and various short-term retail jobs.
One job he especially enjoyed was working as a restaurant mystery shopper, which took him all over Florida eating at diners and fast-food joints, where he developed a dysfunctional relationship with antacids.
Later, he established a respectable career as a branch manager in banking, then as a full-time real estate agent. In 1990, he worked in middle management for the U.S. Census Bureau, where he says he resigned suddenly, though the Census Bureau refuses to discuss the matter.
Eventually, he earned his bachelor’s degree and then his Master of Education degree before beginning a long career in higher education. He rose as high as Assistant Dean and Director of Financial Aid at a university in Miami while also working as an adjunct faculty member. For about twenty-five years, he worked twelve-hour days.
This eclectic work history gave him an education in the human condition, but it also delayed his writing career.
Before retiring from the university, he published a handful of flash fiction stories in various publications, including Flash Fiction Magazine, Everyday Fiction, 101 Words, and Blink-Ink.
His first book, a humorous exploration of his move from Florida to Idaho, was published in 2022. His mystery/thriller novel followed in 2024.
Mr. Humeston has been married to his second and last wife, Susan, for twenty-four years. They have one daughter, who lives in New York, and four cats. The cats are single.
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