Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach

In Rumors of Water, L.L. Barkat recommends a book to her daughter. Barkat is out in the garden with her girls, who are pulling weeds, and one of the girls, Sara, has decided she hates Bishop’s Weed. Barkat tells Sara, “It’s your nemesis…Every gardener has a nemesis.” She continues with her own reflection on the impact of having a nemesis—a garden nemesis or otherwise: It’s not going to cause psychological distress and end up in her memoirs. But it’s not going to go away either. She’s going to need to work around it, dig it out, ignore it, accept it, if she wants to grow lettuce and peas in this garden bed. (41) She recommends to Sara a book by Michael Pollan that has a nemesis—maybe a gopher. I, being rather lowbrow, thought of Caddyshack instead of Michael Pollan, and then of Seinfeld and Newman: Jerry... Newman. The Writer’s Nemesis You probably don’t have a Newman in your life. In fact, I hope you don’t have any actual nemesis—that is, a flesh-and-blood writer who steals your ideas or steals your thunde