Are you interested in joining the post calvin community? We have several openings for new writers beginning this August, and we’d love for you to audition! If you submit an audition post, it will be considered by the editorial board, and the writers who are the best fit for the post calvin will be invited to join us full-time. If you are not chosen full-time, your piece will be featured as a guest post (they show up at the end of each month) sometime this summer or fall.
So what are we looking for in a post calvin writer and a good audition piece? So glad you asked!
A post calvin writer should be:
- a Calvin College alumnus
- under the age of 30
- willing to write and submit one post per month through at least July 2020 (one year commitment)
- conscientious about deadlines, proofreading, and responding to notes from the editorial board
- a skilled wordsmith, creatively using language to tell stories, express ideas, and connect with readers.
- willing to join the post calvin community as a writer but also a reader and commenter. We are a collective of artists as much as individuals who publish online.
An audition post should:
- Be 500-800 words on any nonfiction topic. We love personal stories, spiritual reflections, funny observations, media reviews, current events opinions, career musings—anything that strikes your fancy! Reading past posts should give you an idea of what people write about. (If you’re a frequent reader, you’ll know there are topics that are overdone and tired. Shy away form those.)
- Display your unique voice and perspective as a writer.
- Include a landscape-oriented (a.k.a. horizontal) photo that relates to your post (not a headshot of you), attached separately.
- Include a few sentences of biographical information written in third person (when you graduated from Calvin, what your major was, where you live and what you do now, etc.)
- Be submitted as an editable Google Doc to info@thepostcalvin.com. (You may get a “this user does not have a Google account message—that’s okay!) A Microsoft Word file is acceptable if you’re not a Google user.
- NOT be time-sensitive. These posts are used through the summer and fall as guest posts (at the end of each month), so writing about your family’s Fourth of July traditions isn’t a great choice. Your post might show up at the end of June or the end of, say, November. Write accordingly.
Audition pieces are judged on topic choice, content, quality of language use, mechanics and grammar, uniqueness of voice, ability to follow the instructions in this listing, etc.
The deadline for submitting audition pieces is Friday, June 21 at 11:59 p.m.
If you have questions about anything, feel free to ask! You can contact any of the editorial board members via email or Facebook, or you can send an email to info@thepostcalvin.com for more details.
We’re looking forward to hearing your unique voice! Good luck.
Sincerely,
the post calvin editorial board
Josh deLacy (’13)
Will Montei (’13)
Deb Rienstra (English department)
Abby Zwart (’13)

Abby Zwart (’13) teaches high school English in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She spends her free time making lists of books she should read, cooking, and managing the post calvin.