Calvin College was a great school back in the late 1980s when I attended it, but it seems to have even more going for it now (and I'm not talking about the George W. Bush commencement address). Each year Ken Heffner and the Student Activities Office put together an extraordinary lineup of concerts, and the January Series is widely considered one of the best college lecture series in the country.
Then there's the Festival of Faith & Writing, which the English department hosts every two years. For such a small school, Calvin has drawn some big names in the literary world—from Chaim Potok and Elie Wiesel to John Updike and Joyce Carol Oates. This spring the big news is that Salman Rushdie is coming to speak, but I'm looking forward just as much to hearing Marilynne Robinson, whose novel Gilead I wrote about before.
This year I have a personal stake in the Festival, as Shelly Dunn and the rest of the Festival committee have entrusted me with the design and development of their website. It's been a fun project, one that has kept me up late quite a few nights, plotting, planning, and piecing together the online space for Festival information. It's also one of the reasons that this blog has been a little less active lately. I've also been busy with a couple other, smaller web projects, along with a new role at work, but I'm saving details about all that for another day and another entry.
Check out the Festival of Faith & Writing website. Better yet, treat yourself to a few days of pure literary bliss, April 20 – 22. Online registration will start at the end of October.
Nice job on the site, looks great! By the way I started a new job if you didn't know. Check my blog for the details.
You amaze me, Karl! Great work.
Thanks for posting this, Karl. I'm hoping to be able to fly back "home" to GR for some of the festival.
Great work on the site, too!
Hey, thanks for the compliments. An interesting part of the process that I didn't mention in the entry was the need to work within certain constraints, such as the color palette, that were dictated by the client. I learned a lot through the process.
Josh, congratulations on your new job! When my iMac crashed, I lost my RSS feeds, so I kind of lost touch with your blog/life. Glad to have your feed back in my news reader and happy for your recent accomplishments. Keep up the great work!