Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to the first edition of Guide to the Non-Existent Universe for 2000. It looks like it's going to be a good year for IMC, and for the Guide.

What can you expect from the 'zine in 2000? Well, I'll be scouting out some interviews with movers and shakers in the gaming business, some you may have even heard of. In the next issue I'll tell you about my meeting with a member of the real, live Technocracy. The issue after that I'll be posting up an interview I did with Jason Holmgren, a game designer who's credited as providing much of the inspiration for the well-known comic book, Knights of the Dinner Table.

I also hope to attend some gaming events, and provide timely coverage of things that are happening in the industry. Watch also for more on Gline's pre-history of IMC, and for the debut of Bex's original comic strip, IRL!.

I'd like to take this time to ask you to remember that Guide to the Non-Existent Universe is largely a product of what you, the readers, put into it. Most of the articles are written by ordinary chatters like yourself. I've been very pleased with the response so far, but I need more! Right now I get three or four articles submitted a month. That's a good solid number, but it could be better.

Now I KNOW a large group of role-players like you has probably got hundreds of megs of fan fiction, random thoughts, poetry, or essays lying around on your collective hard drives. Send me your juvenilia, your 10th grade poems, your short stories, your reviews, your idle doodling on a cocktail napkin. I might not be able to use everything, but you can be sure I'll give a good reason if I don't.

If you're willing to do something on a regular basis, so much the better. Maybe you read or watch a lot of sci-fi and fantasy…how would like to get a regular column, reviewing books or films?

And it's not just words I'm looking for! No sir! Do you have any role-play related art you want to share? Pictures of you in a particularly impressive LARP costume? Maybe you used to draw a regular cartoon for the school paper. Find a scanner and send it on to me at pvanhiel@netcom.ca. Remember, no naked elves or vampires, okay?

That's it from me. Go enjoy the articles in this month's update!

Pieter van Hiel is still waiting for his personal robot servant and water-powered zeppellin. This IS 2000 after all…