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, which you subscribe to via a cellphone number, but which you can see both in the app and on your browser. Both are absolutely free for subscribers. (There was also a Yahoo Groups edition, which I had to shutter when Yahoo stopped that service.)
The Google Groups emails are collections, compiled whenever I have the time to put together an edition. The Telegram channel sends out individual opportunities as and when I see them. These 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 Telegram channel unless I forget.
Important: both 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 channel may sometimes see a bunch of updates. Usually, the email has fewer typos; bleddy Telegram does not spell-check.
A note on privacy.
When you subscribe via Google Groups, no one else can see your email address except admins (which is me). With the Telegram channel, no one else can see your details, except the admin, me, and I can only see your phone number if I already have you in my personal Telegram contacts and/or if your own privacy settings permit me to see 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.) In both of 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 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 1700 subscribers; the Telegram channel, set up more recently, has a more modest following (update: around 150 as of September 2022). 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.
