Picture this: it’s 2:13 a.m. You’re at a friend’s kitchen table, which is half-covered in coffee mugs and half-covered in paper scraps. Someone’s flipping through an old magazine with scissors in hand, slicing out an ad to repurpose into something political, something funny, something nobody will see coming. The playlist’s been hijacked three times already, and now you’re on that perfect late-night loop of weird tracks that make no sense together but somehow feel like exactly the right background noise.

That’s collaboration.

The sweaty, messy, stay-up-too-late kind that feels like a secret language. The kind where you throw your chaos in with someone else’s chaos, and somehow, against all odds, a new thing gets born.

That’s the lifeblood of zine culture. And it’s the heartbeat of She Zine Mag.

Collaboration as a Lineage

DIY publishing has always thrived on borrowed paper and borrowed time. You stapled someone else’s flyer into your zine because you wanted their show packed. You traded mixtapes because your friend knew about the bands no one else did. You photocopied ten extra copies of your issue, not because you needed them, but because you knew someone else would.

This wasn’t networking. It wasn’t clout-chasing. It was trust. It was love. It was community that knew the system wasn’t built for us, so we’d better build something for ourselves.

That’s the lineage She Zine Mag wants to keep alive.

So when we say we’re obsessed with collaboration, it’s not branding. It’s memory. It’s inheritance. It’s survival. And it’s fun!

The Present Tense

Here’s the funny part: we don’t have collabs yet. No live store. No glossy “partnerships” to brag about.

We could wait until everything is “ready.” But that’s not how zine kids move. We start where we are, with what we have, and we publish the chaos as we go.

So we made a blueprint. A dream board. A messy, unpolished, half-invitation, half-dare.

Call it our Collaboration Menu.

✂️ The Collaboration Menu ✂️

“Part zine manifesto, part wishlist, part open invitation. Bring your weird. We’ll bring ours”.

This isn’t a press kit. It’s more like scribbles in the margins of a notebook, expanded into a manifesto. Here’s how we imagine linking arms:

1. The Guest Feature

We want your voice. Whether you’re a visual artist, a writer with a draft folder full of rants, a cartoonist whose punchlines bite harder than Twitter, or some kind of pop-culture cryptid with stories nobody else can tell—we want you here.

Your words on our front page, your artwork as a digital cover story, your weekly musings stitched into our Substack. A limited-run guest column that doesn’t just live online but maybe sneaks its way into print, tucked between our pages like a secret. You bring the vibe, we bring the platform.

2. Print Inserts & Zine-within-a-Zine Projects

We grew up loving the pull-outs: posters, mixtape tracklists, secret pages that made a zine feel alive. Imagine a folded poster you can tape to your wall, or a mini-zine tucked inside ours like a Russian doll.

We want guest artists or collectives to hijack a few pages of our print issues. Make it weird. Make it personal. Make it something that falls out of a magazine and makes someone’s day.

3. Co-Merch Drops (Small Batch, Big Heart)

Not the kind of collab merch you see at the mall. We’re talking small-batch, limited-run, heart-on-sleeve, handmade kind of drops. Sticker packs you can slap on your guitar case. Protest pins designed to get you into (or out of) conversations. 

We want these collabs to live like artifacts. Something you find years later in a drawer and remember exactly what it meant.

4. IG Takeovers & Mini-Residencies

Our Instagram isn’t a museum. It’s a playground. Which means we’re handing over the keys for takeovers.

Imagine this: a week of your process, your playlists, your unfiltered rants. Mood boards that don’t apologize. Process pics where the paint is still drying. Mini-essays about what keeps you up at night. We want your week, your rules.

5. Event + Workshop Partnerships

Think feminist teach-ins in community centres, DIY demos at cafés and on kitchen tables, story circles where everyone talks with their hands. If you’ve got a skill or a story—especially one you never thought you’d get paid for—we want to centre it.

Workshops that teach everything from natural dyeing to radical organizing. Meetups that feel like potlucks. Pop-up shows where art and activism share the same stage.

6. Collab Kits

One of our favourite ideas: kits that feel like care packages.

Imagine opening a box filled with your art, our prints, a tiny DIY guide, and maybe something weird from the dollar store. A zine starter kit curated by a guest artist. Your products sent out to an audience that will love what you have to offer.  A “soft rebellion” toolkit. A package that feels like a love letter to a version of yourself you forgot to water.

These kits aren’t just merch. They’re experiences you can hold in your hands.

7. Affiliate Collabs That Don’t Suck

We all know what bad affiliate programs feel like. That’s not our world.

If you’ve got a store, a platform, or a product you believe in, let’s build something different. Transparent, feminist, aligned. A partnership that actually feels good—not gross.

8. Digital Chaos Labs

We’re scheming on interactive, experimental digital spaces: virtual zine jams, audio collages, generative art experiments that make people go, “What even is this?”

If that’s your territory, come mess it up with us (lovingly). The internet needs more beautiful chaos.

9. Brand Collabs (Very Selectively)

We’re not anti-brand. We’re anti-boring.

If you’re a company that shares our values and isn’t afraid to get weird, let’s talk. We don’t want collabs that just push product. We want collabs that spark community, memory, laughter, and maybe even trouble.

10. Surprise Us

The best collabs never fit a menu anyway. So if you’ve got an idea that doesn’t live in one of these boxes, we want to hear it.

We’re not precious. We’re curious.

Why Share This Now?

Because waiting until everything is perfect is just another way of never starting (Trust me. I know.) Because collabs don’t belong only to people with polished pitch decks, PR reps, or ten thousand followers. Because we’d rather start in the mess than wait for perfection.

The truth is, the best partnerships are born from obsession and mutual respect. They come from the kind of chaos energy that makes you hit “send” on a DM at 2 a.m. because something in you knows it matters.

If you’re sitting there wondering, Could I?—the answer is yes.

You don’t need credentials. You don’t need industry contacts. You don’t need to prove yourself. You just need to give a shit and want to make something that didn’t exist yesterday.

The Invitation

At She Zine Mag, we don’t see ourselves as gatekeepers. Gatekeeping is boring. We’re key makers.

And right now, we’re jangling the keys in your direction.

So if you’ve got a voice, an idea, a piece of art, a skill, a half-formed plan, or just the wild impulse to say “what if”—we want to hear it.

Because collaboration isn’t just what we do. It’s who we are.

And we’d rather start building now, in the mess, with you.

➝ Let’s Make Something Weird Together

Don’t overthink it. Don’t wait until you’re “ready.” If you’ve got a spark, DM us, pitch us, or just slide a wild idea across the table.

📧 Email: collab@shezinemag.com
📲 DM us: @shezinemagazine

✨ Bring your chaos. We’ll bring ours. Let’s turn it into something unforgettable.