Today, we lost a grimdark enthusiast. The GdM team said goodbye to a team mate and fellow grimdark enthusiast, Kennet Rowan Gencks, GdM First Reader and great bloke.
Kennet approached me on May 20, 2015, in response to an ad for first readers. He did his testing and kicked arse, subsequently landing himself a spot on the First Reader team due to his spot-on opinions of grimdark short-fiction.
In his approach to interacting with our submitting authors, Kennet took the approach of treating people as he’d like to be treated, telling me during testing, “I wasn’t really sure if direct and blunt was the correct style or if I should soft-pedal it, so I went with what I’d want to hear myself.” I’m certain there are plenty of authors out there who submitted to GdM who benefited from Kennet taking the time to write helpful feedback on their piece
After spending months getting stuck into the mag, responding to fiction submitters, being a part of team discussions on developing the magazine and what we could do to improve each issue, Kennet’s health issues really grabbed a hold of him. If you followed him on his page, you’ll have seen the horrifying updates as his health issues really took hold.
Today, as we see so often in the grimdark fiction we love to read, is not a happy ending. Today, we lost Kennet Rowan Gencks and the grimdark community lost a person I wish I’d had more time with, but am so glad I got the opportunity to know.
Goodbye mate. You’re an absolute champion and I’ll miss you.
