THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2019 // 3
SCRATCHPAD
Keeper of a brother’s literary legacy
Arnie Hummasti
strives to honor
sibling’s talent
By ERICK BENGEL
COAST WEEKEND
A
Colin Murphey
Arnie Hummasti poses for a
photo with two of his brother
Neil Hummasti’s books after a
presentation at Fort George Brewery.
coast
rnie Hummasti had two
brothers.
They were both diag-
nosed with pancreatic cancer on
the same day. George, the oldest,
died in 2010, followed by Arnie’s
younger brother, Neil, in 2011.
Neil, an Astorian who taught
in local schools, wrote on the
side — novels, short stories,
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
weekend
arts & entertainment
COAST WEEKEND EDITOR
ERICK BENGEL
CONTRIBUTORS
KATHERINE LACAZE
BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL
ON THE COVER
Every Thursday
Jan. 24, 2019 • coastweekend.com
The photo of Neil
Hummasti, taken in
the 1970s, featured in
the back of his books.
An
undiscovered
talent
ARNIE HUMMASTI
Two novels by local teacher and writer
his death
Neil Hummasti published years after
Jan. 26-27
Windless Kite Festival in Long Beach, Wash.,
ALSO INSIDE
Arnie Hummasti
See story on Page 8
COASTAL LIFE
4
Windless Kite Festival
8
Neil Hummasti
12
essays, theological tracts. Though
he received compliments from
publishers over the years, he
never found commercial suc-
cess. His struggle is a case study
in how a driven writer can, for
any number of reasons, fail to
break into that other dimension
reserved for so-called marketable
authors.
Now Arnie, a retired teacher of
drama, journalism and language
arts, is seeking to showcase his
brother’s voluminous writings.
Last year, he self-published
two of Neil’s novels and brought
them to the attention of Coast
Weekend (see Pages 8-9). He
Indoor event turns kite fl ying into performance art
FEATURE
DINING
The art of food
David Campiche’s recipe for clam-mussel chowder
FURTHER ENJOYMENT
CROSSWORD ...............................6
SEE + DO ............................. 10, 11
CW MARKETPLACE.......... 15, 16
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Two novels by area teacher published years after his death
MUSIC CALENDAR .....................5
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even sent copies to the Bookmon-
ger (see Page 19).
Is Arnie hoping Neil’s posthu-
mous paperbacks will make the
leap from Arnie’s own publishing
company, Svensen Pioneer Press,
to one of the top-tier publishers
his brother aimed at?
“That would be nice, but I
don’t expect that,” Arnie said.
“That would be the ultimate goal,
but nowadays it’s almost impos-
sible to get anything published
through a major company.”
As Neil put it in his letter to a
potential publisher when he was
shopping around his comic novel,
“I See London, I See France…”:
“I would like to have access to
the larger publishing houses, and
I am painfully aware of the fact
that most of the major fi rms will
consider new manuscripts only if
they are (1) submitted by reputa-
ble agents or (2) written by peo-
ple who have disgraced them-
selves publicly.”
I wondered if there was a
sense of sadness for Arnie, to
be evangelizing Neil’s work
and serving as the keeper of his
brother’s legacy.
Arnie said enough time has
passed since his brother’s death
that he felt comfortable doing it.
His operative emotion is, sim-
ply, enthusiasm for Neil’s hidden
gifts. “Right now I’m just trying
to honor what I think is his tal-
ent,” he said. CW