Howard Rappaport completed Stanford University’s Certificate in the Novel program and participated in various writers workshops, including the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference, as well as writing workshops at Inprint-Houston, UCLA, UC-Berkeley, UC-Santa Cruz, the James Joyce Center in Dublin, Ireland, and the Booming Ground Writers Conference at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
Prior to Arnold & Igor, he completed several short stories and works of creative nonfiction. Law & Odor, creative nonfiction about the sense of smell and how society might regulate the olfactory, was published in The North American Review.
His essay, Changing Station, on the complexities and joys of paternity, was published in The Los Angeles Review, accompanied by a reading at Skylight Books in Los Angeles. His short story, Still Life, Rotting Fruit, about a young man’s career as a birthday clown gone horribly wrong, appeared in The Madison Review.
Howard has taught music education in the public schools, including instrumental music, chamber orchestra, wind ensemble, jazz band, chorus, general music, and African drumming ensemble. His pedagogical article, The Infinite Variety of Listening Logs, about how to involve students, via reflective journaling, to become active listeners of recorded performances, appeared in the Music Educators National Journal (MENJ).
A Fulbright Awardee, he has served as a music festival adjudicator for the California Music Educators Association, and has appeared as a conductor with the Peninsula Symphony of San Mateo, the South Valley Symphony at Gavilan College, Gilroy, the Central Coast Section High School Honors Orchestra, the Rice University Symphony Orchestra, and the Spokane Symphony at the Sandpoint Music Festival in Idaho.
He has completed coursework in Horticulture & Landscape Design, taught science-based school gardening lessons to elementary and middle school students, served as an educational consultant for the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show, and undertaken numerous community volunteer opportunities as a school garden coordinator, master gardener, and master composter.
A native of Los Angeles, he has resided in Monterey, New York, Houston, Chicago, Düsseldorf, and Amsterdam. He currently lives in Northern California with his wife and two children.