Call for Stories: SCA News
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) call for stories is inspired by “How to Pitch Stories to Eater,” an honest and thoughtful guide for freelancers hoping to work with their publication.
The SCA is a global organization dedicated to engaging, inspiring, and expanding a sustainable global specialty coffee community through leadership in research, education, and events. To deliver this vision, the SCA produces a number of print and digital publications that report on, tell stories about, and critically examine the world of specialty coffee. We are actively seeking pitches from journalists, writers, academics, and other contributors of all backgrounds, especially those whose voices are often underrepresented in our industry. Specialty coffee offers a dynamic and powerful lens for storytelling, and we particularly enjoy hearing from writers whose interests, experiences, and areas of expertise originate outside of the specialty coffee world.
All accepted stories go through a collaborative editorial process.
What We’re Looking For
We encourage anyone interested in working with the SCA to spend some time exploring our previously published work in order to familiarize themselves with the type of stories we usually run, but we’re also open to exploring new types of insightful storytelling. Our aim is to provide thoughtful reported stories, insightful personal narratives, and plain-language coverage of coffee research that shine a light on the specialty coffee community or its work in some way.
We also recommend digging into our editorial guidelines and our style guide—they provide important insight into how we evaluate pitches when they arrive into editor@sca.coffee.
About SCA News
A living collection of valuable content that reflects the SCA’s mission, work, and membership, SCA News features stories on coffee research, sustainability, education, business, and culture written for and by specialty coffee professionals. Please submit all pitches for SCA News to editor@sca.coffee with “SCA News Pitch.” You can also submit a recommendation here.
Community | Features exploring community happenings, gatherings, or trends in coffee communities from new and interesting angles. 750-1200 words.
Origin | Features focused on a specific specialty coffee origin, a topic specifically related to coffee producers, pickers, or production. We prefer that Origin features are written by those involved in the coffee-producing end of the supply chain wherever possible. 750-1200 words.
Viewpoint | An essay or written conversation highlighting a unique point of view on a focused topic from within our global community. 1000-1600 words.
Trends | Whether it’s a trend specific to your corner of the globe or an examination of global trends within our industry, we’re interested in uncovering what’s happening in this type of feature. 750-1200 words.
Volunteer Spotlights | The SCA was built by dedicated volunteers with a vision of an organization that promoted the values of specialty coffee and community. The contributions of SCA volunteers can be seen in the various leadership groups that support the mission of the association and in the thousands who give their time at SCA trade shows and community events every year. Volunteer spotlights showcase one or more of the many volunteers involved in the SCA’s activities and programs. 750-1250 words.
Chapter Spotlights | Once a community of like-minded individuals has come together in a location, there’s an option to explore the founding of a more formal structure: an SCA Chapter. These are communities led by an elected committee of passionate volunteers that represent SCA activities in a specific country or regional territory. SCA Chapters are responsible for engaging the community in their local region by delivering education, events, research, and other engagement opportunities— these features showcase a Chapter’s work or activities. 750-1200 words.
SCA News features are commissioned at a rate of US$175 per 1000 words. Please submit pitches to editor@sca.coffee.