How can I get Clojure :pre & :post to report their failing value?

You could wrap your predicate with the is macro from clojure.test

(defn string-to-string [s1] 
  {:pre  [(is (string? s1))]
   :post [(is (string? %))]}
 s1)

Then you get:

(string-to-string 10)
;FAIL in clojure.lang.PersistentList$EmptyList@1 (scratch.clj:5)
;expected: (string? s1)
;actual: (not (string? 10))