Shoebox #5 Postcombobulation
For the fifth issue of Shoebox Magazine, we invite contributors to reflect on our newly-coined term postcombobulation, cooked up as a mouth-watering concoction of post- (after) and discombobulation (confusion, bewilderment, uneasiness.)
In a discombobulated world, we try to grasp our surroundings through engagement and exploration, yet are faced with the fact that the end goal — which is what exactly? — keeps getting further away.
In Middlemarch, George Eliot introduces us to Mr. Casaubon, a middle-aged and worn out scholar working fervently to finish his field-defining work after decades of research. He falls in love with the much-younger and intellect-hungry Dorothea, and during their honeymoon in Rome, she asks him about the city’s frescoes. Instead of being struck by the magnificence of art, she becomes disillusioned by his long-winded explanations. Eliot writes:
“There is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have [resulted in] a blank absence of interest or sympathy.”
Is Shoebox Mr. Casaubon?
Like that scene, we find that the search for clarity leads only to more entanglement and confusion. How do we reach beyond that — how do we postcombobulate?
For our fifth issue, we are looking for explorations and interpretations of postcombobulation, its relationship to our personal lives, as well as to the outer world. What does the Shoebox-coined term even mean?
- Submissions are welcome in the form of visual art, poetry, translation, essays, or any medium you see fit.
- We welcome submissions in any language. If not in English, please let us know whether you’d like it translated or published only in the original.
- To get a feel for Shoebox and what we do, please have a look at the online PDFs of past issues, as they might answer questions like: “What can I submit?” or “What is this Shoebox?”
Send submissions and other inquiries to magazineshoebox@gmail.com by the 30th of October 2025.
Shoebox is a self-published and independent magazine that has previously released four issues. All issues are self-funded and sales go to cover printing and paper costs. We are not able to pay or in any way compensate for participation in Shoebox Magazine, but aim to give our contributors a place to share and explore their ideas. We print in limited numbers, and offer contributors physical copies at a 1:1 price of the printing and paper costs.
In line with our commitment to facilitating an accessible space, all issues are available for free as a PDF on the website. You are free to print, distribute and share Shoebox Magazines in any way you like.
Open call for the fourth issue of Shoebox Magazine
Shoebox Magazine is growing, and with that we are questioning how to develop while still keeping its core as an open space for a wide range of ideas and forms of expression. It’s no longer a solo-project, rather, there are new editors on board. They can be found here, and will be helping to create a more thoughtful and collective selection process. As we are aiming for inclusivity and openness, one of the key questions for this fourth issue is how to stay true to that, all the while realizing that we will have to make a selection of what gets in and what doesn’t. How do we navigate this tension?
For the fourth issue we invite participants to share what they are engaging with right now this spring of 2025 – whether through writing, storytelling, art, poetry, restaurant reviews or something else entirely.
While there are no themes or set submission guidelines to issues of Shoebox, we hope to enable the space for organic questioning, searching, community and openness.
We know these things may sound vague – openness, searching and organic questioning – so we ask ourselves as we embark on this issue: What does it all mean? Who is this open call for? What can I submit? What does community and openness mean? And actually – what the hell is Shoebox?
How would you respond to those questions?
We invite contributions in any language. Please check previous issues (#1) (#2) (#3)for inspiration and to see how other people have confronted Shoebox before.
Please send your submission to magazineshoebox@gmail.com by the 20th of April 2025 at the latest, along with your name, social media/website and title of your work as you wish it to appear in the magazine.
Shoebox is a self-published and independent magazine that has previously released three issues. All issues are self-funded and all sales go straight to covering printing and paper costs. Currently, we are not able to pay or in any way compensate for participation in Shoebox Magazine, but are happy to provide photos and documentation from the physical copies. All issues are available for free by PDF on the website as well as in select stores and libraries. For a physical copy you can also purchase one directly us for the equivalent of 10 Euros by contacting us. You are free to print, distribute and share it in any way you like.
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The open call for the third issue that was printed as stickers and spread on social media as well as in Cairo, The Hague and Stockholm. Click on the image to read the full 3rd issue.
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Submissions for shoebox #2 is open and to be sent to magazineshoebox@gmail.com or for questions.
Submissions can include art, poetry, critique, essays, photos, rambling thoughts, drawings (and more). Look here to look through the first issue.
Deadline for submissions 9th of July 2024.
9th of June 2024
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The deadline for the open call is now over. We receive and look through submissions on a running basis, so if you have something that you would like to showcase or want to be part in shaping the coming issues, do not hesitate to contact magazineshoebox@gmail.com
12th of March 2024
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For the second edition of the publication, and the FIRST issue of Shoebox Magazine we are collecting texts and art to be published in March/April.
Do you have any ideas? Or thoughts that have been boiling in your mind with no place to put them? Or do you want to try writing for the first time?
Or would you like to showcase your art? Or reflections about your practise and creating in general?
Welcome to submit applications to magazineshoebox@gmail.com along with your name. Deadline is 10th of March.
We accept applications in any language, but if the original text is not in English please provide an English translation and they will be published next to each other in the final magazine. If you do not wish to provide an English translation for whatever reason, please state so in your e-mail and we will consider publishing it monolingually.
Shoebox Magazine 