The essentials.
Caferati Listings carries opportunities for writers — calls for entries and submissions to contests and anthologies, assignments, jobs — since October 2006 (but with a gap between 2012 and 2019) via email on Googlegroups and since April 2021 a Telegram channel (update: and since September 2023, an experiment with a Whatsapp Channel). You subscribe to the Telegram and WhatsApp channels via a cellphone number, but you can also see them on a desktop browser and desktop apps. All versions of these Listings are absolutely free for subscribers. Anyone can send a tip-off or a submission; there’s a form embedded at the end of this post.
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The Google Groups emails are collections, compiled whenever I have the time to put together an edition. The Telegram and WhatsApp channels send out individual opportunities as and when I see them. Email and channel updates are not identical: sometimes, something I’ve posted to Telegram may have a deadline expiring before I send the next email compilation; mostly, though, everything in the email will have appeared in or will appear in the channels, unless I forget. One difference between Telegram and WhatsApp is that posts to WA subscribers will disappear after 30 days.
Important: all are one-way; that is, I can post in the group, but you, or anyone else, cannot. So the only chatter you will hear is from me. If you’re worried about clutter, the email never goes out more than once a week; the Telegram and WhatsApp channels may sometimes see a bunch of updates. Usually, the email has fewer typos. The Google Groups and Telegram channel archives are available online, but WhatsApp retains only the last few months before they vanish.
A note on privacy.
When you subscribe via Google Groups, no one else can see your email address except admins.
With the Telegram channel, no one else can see your details, except the admins, they can only see your phone number if they already have you in their personal Telegram contacts and/or if your own privacy settings permit it. (Telegram privacy is very granular, and you should see your settings before subscribing to any channels, joining groups, or even adding anyone you don’t know to your contacts there.)
On WhatsApp, no one else can see your details. Even the admins can’t see folk that are not already in their contacts. (More about WA channels.)
In all these, I will only contact you through them to send you Listings and, very rarely, a promotional note for other Caferati stuff or other writing-related things I am personally involved with, which might appear as a note within a Listings email or as a separate Telegram or WhstsApp post. I will never contact you individually unless we already correspond and have each other’s contacts. I do not give anyone else access to your contacts, and never will.
A note to people who have opportunities to share.
The email newsgroup has over 1750 subscribers; the Telegram channel, set up more recently, has around 250 (these are as of September 2023, when the WhatsApp version has just been added). Every single one of them has opted in to receive Listings. And they are there because they want to see these opportunities. So, if you or your organisation have a requirement, or if you come across opportunities and want to share them with the community, please do get in touch. If you know me personally, email me with ‘for Caferati Listings’ in the subject line, but preferably, please use this Google form for submissions or tip-offs (the form is also embedded below), because it helps me keep organised.
I don’t charge to carry a Listing. But what goes into the Listings is my call. As a general guideline, I don’t include anything that requires a non-trivial entry or submission fee and work that doesn’t offer pay. I may sometimes include zines and things like that that do not pay which I think are interesting.
