Answer Our Call for Local Voices

We're hoping to add a new voice to Kennesaw Patch: yours.

We’re about to roll out a new look for the site in preparation for an important addition next week called Local Voices. It will be a place to see the latest headlines from blogs in our area and, more important, a place for you and anyone else in Kennesaw to express your thoughts and opinions about anything and everything going on around us.

• Are you passionate about Kennesaw’s core issues?
• Are you an expert craftsman or hobbyist who can share do-it-yourself tips?
• Do you have strong opinions about local government?
• Do you represent a community organization eager to spread the word about what it’s doing?
• Can you make us laugh?
• Can you write compellingly or make a persuasive argument on video in two minutes or less?

Then we want to hear from you about joining our lineup of Local Voices. Whether you have your own blog and would like a bigger audience, have thought about starting a blog but never got around to it, or just have something to say and want a place to say it, Local Voices could be for you.

This isn't a reporting job. You write what you want to write when you want to write it. Do it on your schedule, whether that's every day or once a month.

You Need to Know What It Takes to Be Relevant

We don't have a lot of hard requirements except that what you write has to be interesting and relevant to Kennesaw residents because they're Kennesaw residents. If your column would make as much sense on a site in Timbuktu as in Kennesaw, it's not what we have in mind. But if Kennesaw residents feel more plugged into our community after reading it, you've hit the nail on the head.

You Need to Know What We're Looking For

Well, just about anything if there's a Kennesaw hook. Have a perspective on how the community has changed over the years? Want a place to showcase your cool photos from around town? Need a de facto online newsletter for your community group? Have favorite recipes to share or books to recommend? Eager to vent or rant on video like John Goodman’s character on Treme? All of those sound like contenders.

You Need to Know What We Consider Responsible

Opinions are awesome, particularly well-thought-out ones backed by facts. But personal insults, unfounded claims and defamation don’t have a place on Kennesaw Patch. When opinions are strong, the lines can get fuzzy, but we're happy to guide you through the fog. As long as your intention is above board, we should be able to make space for you on Kennesaw Patch.

You Need to Know We're Paying in Gratitude

You might get fame within and beyond Kennesaw from being one of our Local Voices, but you won’t get fortune. We get the privilege of playing host to your valuable views. You get access to a growing audience on a site we’re striving to develop into a must-visit community hub. And because we're now part of the Huffington Post Media Group, there’s always the chance your column or personal video will wind up in front of a huge national audience.

You Need to Know You'll Have Plenty of Freedom

Local Voices will be different from the news stories and columns you see from Patch staffers and freelancers. Those articles, whether reporting facts or presenting opinions, are planned and either written by or assigned by your local editor, Gaetana Pipia. We hope those articles are as well-written, well-edited, polished and professional as anything you’ll see in the local media. We want quality in Local Voices as well, but that will be entirely in your control. We won’t assign you anything or hold you to a schedule. We won’t edit your work beyond perhaps checking your spelling. We'll keep an eye out for anything inappropriate as we try to cultivate a constructive atmosphere full of diverse views aired in useful ways, and on rare occasions we’ll decide your submission doesn’t belong on Kennesaw Patch. But we won’t change your words or style, and we won’t limit Local Voices to opinions and ideas we agree with. Local Voices will be the home for your thoughts.

If all of that sounds good to you, if you’re eager for an audience for what you have to say, email gaetana.pipia@patch.com today, and we'll talk about making it happen. If you have a sample of the writing or video you'd like to do, send it along. We can’t wait to hear your Local Voice.