Today, Skye, the Alaska Literacy Program math tutor, remarked that while attending a recent conference in Indianapolis, he went to the Kurt Vonnegut museum and there watched a video in which Vonnegut said that we all need to take advantage of the fact that we have one or more nemesis.

This statement, which in this dispatch is now third hand, stopped me dead in my cognitive tracks. I have had many nemi as I like to call them.

I worked with Sherri at the Fairbanks News Miner. I was a copy editor. She had the job I coveted, was a feature writer and editor for Heartland, the newspaper magazine. I went on for my MFA and then my Ph.D. Sherri went on and while in the same program I was in, got her thesis published. From there she got a job as director of the MFA program at the University of Alaska Anchorage and also was a staff writer for Alaska Magazine.

She also assisted in directing the Kachemak Bay Writing program.

And she published several nonfiction books. Frank Soos became her mentor.

Me, I made the mistake of going on for my Ph.D. It was the wrong thing to do because it was a post terminal degree. All I could do with it, once I had it, was teach freshman composition.

I was actually seen as a potential nemesis by one of my teachers, Wendy Bishop. When Pete and I published The Alaska Bicycle Touring Guide, she remarked to me that she could not have a student of hers get their book published before she got hers published.

All three of these individuals are dead, long gone. But I have since learned that nemesis are like wack-a-mole – when some go down, others pop up.

My latest nemi is Ken Waldman. He was anything but a nemi when we were in graduate school together, working on our MFAs. He was just this very eccentric fellow who I, and most of my classmates, refused to take seriously. He was in fact a laughable irritant. He was still a laughable irritant when a few years later, I met up with him at a writing conference. My then successful writing friends laughed at this near sighted, stoop shouldered fellow, who carried copies of his book in his backpack, and called himself the Nomadic Press.

He came to Palmer a few years back, may have been at Fireside Books, promoting one of his books. He said hello to Pete and me. I continued to regard him as woefully eccentric. My joke was, where’s Waldman?

He popped up again, here in Palmer, two weeks ago, was a cause célèbres of the town. He made the rounds, doing readings, workshops, and school visits. And he got paid for what he did.

I found myself wondering why fate would have it that I have not had the same kind of success Ken has had. After all, we acquired MFAs from the same academic institution.

Me, I’m just the book lady, way weirder than Ken will ever be. I think, in fact, that I am going to start looking behind potted palms when I enter rooms and lobbies.

Vonnegut would say nemesis are, or should be, a driving force in our lives. I just don’t want to fall off a cliff in attempting to keep up with good old Ken.

Next: 116. 4/28/26: Language is Virus