Posted 8:11 PM by Liz

I've just heard the sad news that Bev Volker passed away yesterday, with colon cancer. Bev was one of the early Star Trek zine editors, and a fine writer herself.

Twenty years ago, those of us in K/S fandom spoke warily of when we were "old." Would K/S survive us? We joked about a K/S nursing home where we could read zines and talk about our guys. K/S did indeed survive, though it metamorphosed into slash, not exactly what most of us had anticipated.

Now it is we who are old, at least in the eyes of most current slash fans, and some of us are leaving the field. Chris Soto, a couple of years ago, one of the finest artists ever to grace fandom. Marian McChesney last year, someone with whom I had deep differences but whose loss I still felt. There have been a couple of others whose names elude me at the moment. Now Bev Volker. The "old school" K/S-ers are fading away.

I remember my grandmother saying that the hardest thing for her in growing old was watching her friends die one by one. She lived in the same town for most of her life--married, bore children and welcomed grandchildren with the same group of friends over a span of two generations. Unlike her, I've lived all over everywhere, from childhood to middle adulthood, seldom more than a few years in the same place. The K/S community has been my extended family. Now I know firsthand how my grandmother felt.

With the rest of K/S fandom, I mourn Bev's passing, and offer my condolences and prayers to her family.