It looks increasingly probable that the general election will be officially called next Tuesday, February 1st. Until then, you can read our ongoing coverage of the pre-campaign news here.

But with the start of the official campaign, we’ll be launching a full election microsite, where we’ll be trying out some new things – we hope to have more audiovisual content, more live coverage, more interactivity and more voices being heard.

Part of our plans involve offering a platform on irishtimes.com for anyone who wants to write a piece about any aspect of the election. Just send it to election@irishtimes.com and make sure it meets these simple criteria:

1) It’s 600 words or less

2) You’re willing to give your real name, which we can verify.

3) It doesn’t contain material which may be considered defamatory, which incites hatred or contains foul or abusive language, or is gratuitously offensive.

If you’re a blogger and would like us to republish one of your posts on irishtimes.com, we’d be happy to do so, attributing appropriately and linking back to your original content.

We plan to have the microsite up and running on February 2nd.