An Interview with Writer David Magee

From Capitalists to Cookies

“Mother’s Not Frowning at Me Anymore.”

By Sara Pentz

Author David Magee’s writing is positively saturated with southern tradition. An award-winning newspaper columnist and non-fiction author who fancies writing about big businessmen, he is, as he puts it, “…unafraid to say the unspoken and use humor to illuminate the trickiest and stickiest issues facing those who live in and love today's south.” He calls his writings “contemplations.”

Magee was born and raised in Oxford, Mississippi, the home of William Faulkner and more than a dozen other accomplished and noted authors including, John Grisham Larry Brown, Barry Hannah and Tom Franlin.

In this interview for Mississippi Capitalist he reflects on how living in the south instilled him with the passion for writing––and what it was like to be around great writers and iconic businessmen. He recently moved to on Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, with his wife and three children, “…too get a better perspective on life in Oxford.

Magee is also known for his non-fiction books about men of business; successful men who tell their story of building and rescuing companies. He is the author of Turnaround: How Carlos Ghosn Rescued Nissan, The John Deere Way: Performance That Endures, and Ford Tough: Bill Ford And The Battle To Rebuild America's Automaker, Endurance: Winning Lifes Majors the Phil Mickelson Way, Getting Published: How to Learn and Mast the Business of Writing. He speaks of these men and their impact on business in this interview with a kind of reverence––almost in the same way he discusses his passion for writing.

A former newspaper editor, columnist, freelance writer, business owner and small town politician (he became the youngest ever elected member of the city council in Oxford, Mississippi in 1996), Magee was named one of Mississippi’s top business leaders under the age of 40 in 1998. He decided on a leap of faith in 1999 to write full-time, a move he has never regretted, he says. He is currently a columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Look for Magee’s blog at http://davidmagee.blogspot.com.

This summer those who enjoy David Magee’s humor and contemplations are in for a treat. He has written a new book about one of the South’s most beloved and interesting snack foods. Titled MoonPie: Biography of an Out-of-This-World Snack, the book is scheduled for release by Jefferson Press in the summer of 2006. It weaves the colorful story of the MoonPie with the history of the south. Working closely with MoonPie magnate Sam Campbell and company employees from multiple generations, Magee has been able to capture a can’t-put-down story around this beloved southern snack.

Sara Pentz: How would you describe yourself as a person?

David Magee: I’m a Southerner. I get that everywhere I go. Someone asked me one time––I’d done a book with the John Deere Company and I did a book with Carlos Ghosn, and with Bill Ford. People ask me, how did you do that? These people aren’t known to cooperate. I tell them that obviously you have to bring a measure of integrity to the table, I think. Above and beyond that, I think my Southern-ness and approachability is what mattered more than anything.

Sara Pentz: So it made it easier for you to interview business because you were able to get them to open up. Do you think that you set up a trust to they can feel assured by the nature of the questions asked that you’re not going to be mean to them?

David Magee: Absolutely. There’s no question about it. There’s approachability and a trust factor. I think people felt like – it’s ridiculous to think that a Southerner should be more trusted, but there is unquestionably approachability and a trust factor.

Sara Pentz: It’s because you all speak so slowly and Southerners project gentleness! How do you describe yourself as a writer? I’m talking about two separate things now. I want to know who you are as a writer.

David Magee: As a writer, I’m still developing and morphing. What’s interesting is that I started out writing about international subjects of importance. I felt like I had to because I thought it was the only way to do it. I’m kind of morphing over time into who I am as writer.

Sara Pentz: And who is that?

Who I am as a writer primarily is trying to take complicated subjects about people and business and help explain it in a simple way so that people understand it. At heart, I’m a people person. I’m fascinated by people and what they do to create change. In large part, my column and blog are people issues. Sometimes there are sensitive ones that I tackle and try to have a laugh about. Even big subjects like what’s wrong with how Carlos Ghosn and Nissan solved their problems.

I try to write it in a simple way that people can understand. I think that’s my whole objective. I’m trying to help people understand who they are and what they are. Often that comes back to my roots and fascination with my own existence.

Sara Pentz: Why did you choose to write about the business leaders and their companies?

David Magee: All of my subjects were chosen because there are iconic on larger scales. Carlos Ghosn, for instance, is recognized by those in the know as the world’s leading global business leader. In Bill Ford, you have a fascinating story in that he is the great grandson of Henry Ford trying to lead and turnaround this company, but he is also a bit of a contradiction. He is running a large automaker, but he is also a huge environmentalist with a big soft heart for the world.

John Deere speaks for itself in that the brand is recognized in the 21^st century as one of the most respected and strongest in the world and its current leader, Robert W. Lane, is the epitome of what we should want today’s leaders to stand for. He is a detailed, unafraid businessman…a real visionary. But, he is also one of the finest human beings you can meet…

As for Phil Mickelson, I think all of us relate so well to him because we are all struggling to win life’s majors and we never feel like we get due respect and we always believe we have the most talent…but it is still not easy. The lessons learned from his career are valuable to all of us.

Sara Pentz: How do you view those lessons?

Even if I’m writing a humorous column or a book about MoonPie, there are lessons to be learned. I like iconic subjects because we can all relate to them. Carlos Ghosn is a great business leader, but anybody can benefit from his lessons; and the same can be said for John Deere, etc.

Sara Pentz: Who did you find the most fascinating:

David Magee: I must add that without question Ghosn is the subject I am asked most about, perhaps because his is so mysterious, this globaliste who speaks five languages…born in Brazil, educated in France running a Japanese company. The thing I tell people is that the man in person easily lives up to and exceeds his reputation; he is dynamic, extremely smart and just a rare, one of a kind individual who has not only vision, but an ability to execute the most minute details. Also, he works hard at changing people, which is his greatest asset.

In some ways, he is bigger than life because in many areas of the world he is treated like a rock star, but he also has a real touch of humanity. He is a strong family man and he has also called me at home before, which is surprising to some but it did not seem strange at all because he does not operate under a set of limiting rules.

Sara Pentz: Who was your favorite?

David Magee: A favorite, without a doubt, is Bill Ford. I’m proud to call him a friend because if every company in the world had such a chairman and CEO it would be a better place. He is a strong business leader who is tougher than meets the eye. He’s just had to face the most difficult of challenges. The fact that the company is still standing and he’s still pushing hard for change says everything about Bill Ford. He would rather be spending time with his children, but he understands the importance of Ford Motor Company to his family, company employees and the world at large. Everyone needs this company to not only survive, but thrive.

Sara Pentz: I want to return why you selected those people to write those books about.

David Magee: Well, the Carlos Ghosn one goes right back to Mississippi. He’d come there to put that Nissan plant in Mississippi. Mississippi figured so prominently in the future. You talk about telling the untold story. I was so fascinated by the fact that this Japanese company being run largely by the French after Renault bought in.

Carlos Ghosn is a global business genius and he had a Japanese company being run by the French. He was a multicultural leader. They picked Mississippi of all places as the centerpiece of the company’s whole revival. That fascinated me to no end. I thought I had a better perspective on it than anybody else. I had a relationship with Carlos Ghosn and it was just a natural.

Sara Pentz: Give me the bottom line of what it was about him in this environment of Mississippi that turned that company around.

David Magee: I’ll tell you what it was. It’s the most intriguing quality of Carlos Ghosn. He believes that culture is additive. He doesn’t believe you have to go in and replace all of the people. He believes you can teach people new lessons. Culture is additive and people can change if you teach them how to teach themselves. He is all about changing people and getting them to see the world around them – to see their job differently.

That’s kind of my mission as a Southerner and what I write about. It’s helping people see the world around them differently. That’s what he did; he changed the minds of the people. He got them to think differently, and it was such a relative lesson to the South and what I see and say. That was the message of that story and what intrigued me about him.

Sara Pentz: Were there certain characteristics about him? I’m talking about his moral values, integrity, and so on. Were there certain ones that particularly intrigued you?

David Magee: His integrity in business terms is just off the charts. I always say that his enemies respect him deeply. They do. He’s difficult to punch holes in. The thing I like out him is that he has a “can’t fail” attitude. He’s not perfect, but he sets his mind on what he wants. He goes after it, and if they fail they use that lesson to keep after it. Here’s what they’re going to do, and that’s all there is to it. I try to adopt some of the same qualities, but it doesn’t always work.

Sara Pentz: Is it really true that it’s that “can’t fail” attitude that really makes or breaks a person?

David Magee: I don’t think there is any question about it.

Sara Pentz: It doesn’t matter where you come from, who your parents are?

David Magee: It doesn’t matter. It’s a mindset. There are factors. You have to have talent and you have to go after what your goal is in the right area. You can’t just shoot from the hip and go in any direction. But if you’re making an educated decision about what direction you’re going in, and you do have some talent, then the final piece is typically a matter of mindset.

Sara Pentz: And that’s what makes these other men so intriguing to you?

David Magee: Oh, no question. They were very strong. All of them were strong brands, but also very strong personalities. They had the most lessons to learn.

Sara Pentz: And how successful were those books?

David Magee: The Carlos Ghosn Nissan book sold more than 100,000 copies in 8 languages now. Yeah, it did well. The others have done well – not that well, but they’ve done well. They were in the 25,000- to 50,000-copy range.

Sara Pentz: I’m really interested in is your take on––what is a capitalist?

David Magee: To me, being a capitalist is seizing opportunity. It’s getting a lot harder to seize opportunity. That’s my whole problem. It’s getting increasingly harder to seize opportunity. It’s the old thing where the people who have it are finding more, and those that can’t are having increasing difficulty. Supposedly, we have more programs in this country for people to have it. I’m not seeing many of them being able to take advantage of it. We’re just continually making it more difficult and more difficult. It goes back to that seat belt thing.

Sara Pentz: Are you talking about the fact that the government is interfering with our lives?

David Magee: Yeah, I just feel like it’s getting more difficult. The business environment is getting so difficult in this country. Most people I hear from – from physicians to big business and college graduates who like to start a business – it’s almost an insurmountable mountain. That’s a hot button with me. I don’t have any answers, but it’s getting so increasingly difficult. We got programs to help people go to school, but the cost of education is soaring beyond control. So people get out of school with so much debt in school loans that they couldn’t conceive of starting a business. We’ve got a runaway train in cost and regulations that are making it difficult.

Sara Pentz: Why did you write about the golfer Phil Michelson?

David Magee: I wanted to branch out. I never meant to just write business books. That was a step in the direction of not doing business books. That’s what you’re seeing now. The Moon Pie book may be about a brand and a company, but it’s a people book, and so was this Southern issue kind of humor book. I needed to take a step away. I had an editor who wanted me to do the book. I’d just done the Ford Motor Company book, and Ford is Mickelson’s sponsor. It just seemed like a natural.

Sara Pentz: Okay. Let’s switch to you because you have known some pretty famous people in the literary world, too. What was it like growing up as a little boy in Oxford, Mississippi?

David Magee: It’s where the University of Mississippi is, of course. It’s fascinating; I grew up and played in the woods that went with William Faulkner’s house. My best friend down the street was a member of the Faulkner family. I had friends who were older people, like Richard Howorth, who started a bookstore and became the president of the American Booksellers Association years later. I had friends like Larry Brown and John Grisham who became writers.

Starting in about 1980, when Willie Morris moved to town, I got to know him. It was interesting because Oxford was kind of this utopian small town, but all around me were books and writing and I never had any idea. I look back later and it made writing seem attainable.

Sara Pentz: It’s really another world because very seldom do you find that many people who are writing and successful in one small area.

David Magee: No doubt. When I was growing up, Oxford had less than 10,000 residents. That’s pretty shocking when you think about who all I was able to observe and learn from. The mayor of the city now, Richard Howorth That atmosphere had everything to do with what I do now.

Sara Pentz: Describe what it is was like in Oxford, Mississippi, as a little boy. What was the environment like?

David Magee: Well, at the time, the University was not nearly as hip and vibrant as it is now. It was more reflective of the community: nice, a tad bit sleepy, which were great qualities to grow up in. My dad was a faculty member at the University – a professor. I grew up on University Avenue, so I had these dual worlds even as a child, which came together. The University was on my left hand, and the town square was on my right hand. My friends and I used them both fully as playgrounds.

It was a unique environment. I’m not sure that exists out there anymore – to have that University setting, but Oxford was such a small, sleepy town – and I said that endearingly. We would walk around with our basketballs and baseball bats in summertime and play on all the campus facilities. We’d go out and play on the Ole Miss football field. We’d get into the coliseum and play basketball in the same arena as the Rebels played on. You don’t get to do those kinds of things anymore. We’d go to the square and eat Moon Pies and sit around drinking Cokes. It was a very typical Southern small town existence, with the benefit of a state university and its environment and facilities connected – which was rare.

Sara Pentz: Do you remember what your earliest ambitions were when you were a little boy?

David Magee: As a little boy, I told my mother that I wanted to be a writer. I remember telling her that I was going to write a book one day. To be honest, I was not the greatest student and I remember she gave me a frown of a look. I don’t think she had any idea that would ever occur.

Sara Pentz: How did you come up with the idea that you wanted to be a writer? How did you know?

David Magee: I went to the University of Mississippi. I said I would never go to the school in my backyard, but it was hard when it came time to go. I loved Ole Miss. It was hard to leave, and I couldn’t. I went to the University. A man named Will Norton, who is Chairman of the Journalism Department, was an incredible mentor. I fell right in there. He said that I could do it (write) if I wanted.

It was great encouragement and great advice, so I became a writer. I got into newspapers and I was okay at it, particularly writing a column. I was not as good as an editor, but I felt like I had to be an editor to make more money. Finally with kids and whatnot, I was just starving in the newspaper industry. My calling was really to be a columnist and just to write. It just didn’t fit very well with a growing family.

I left in the early 1990s, got out of it, and just got into private business. Interestingly, I missed the interaction of community newspapers so bad that I got involved in the city council. I did a couple of terms on the Oxford City Council.

Sara Pentz: Yes, I hear you are a small-town politician.

David Magee: Well, I was. It’s past tense. I was elected to a couple of terms beginning in my late 20s. I did that because I missed that thing you get as a journalist where, even if you’re playing it straight up, you are still helping to shape and mold communities. I just couldn’t get away from it so I did that.

Sara Pentz: What do you think that small Southern town environment actually instilled in you from a writing perspective?

David Magee: I think the biggest thing was that the environment in Oxford made writing achievable. Publishing and writing - being an author - is next to impossible or is certainly viewed as such. I didn’t really know better. It almost seemed like someone was a butcher, a baker, or a writer.

Sara Pentz: Tell me about Willie Morris who wrote North Toward Home, My Dog Skip and many others.

avid Magee: I met him in 1980. Of course, he was still drinking extremely heavily then. I met him down at Dean Faulkner Wells’ house because her son was one of my good friends. When I first saw Willie, he was having a few drinks and playing Trivial Pursuit. The game had just come out. He was playing Trivial Pursuit and he was unbelievably good because he was a genius. Even under the spell of alcohol, he could pop these answers out one after another. He was a walking encyclopedia.

Sara Pentz: When you were friends with these people, were they writing at the time or were they just your pals?

David Magee: No, I knew some of them before they were writing. Willie Morris was always writing on something, but at that stage of his career, it wasn’t going very fast. People like Grisham, I certainly knew him when we still lived in Oxford. He was writing in the middle of it, and I learned some interesting lessons from him.

Sara Pentz: Like what?

David Magee: Things about how to find your own niche. He said, don’t try to be me; be your own man. That’s when people start writing and think they’re going to become the next John Grisham. That was a great lesson he taught me – be my own man. Find your own niche. That was a key lesson for me. I also watched him have a lot of focus and diligence.

When he started up he was not a writer, but once he found success he was doing a book a year. He still does; he’s actually done more than that at times. It may have been easier later in his career, but early on he had an extreme amount of discipline. I watched people pull on him from every direction, even in that small town. It taught me that the only way to write a book and meet a deadline is to sit in a chair and get it done. Find your own niche, sit in your chair and get it done. Those were very valuable lessons from John Grisham.

Sara Pentz: I want to get back to when you said to your Mom and she didn’t believe you...

David Magee: It was more of a troubled look.

Sara Pentz: Like you’re never going to make a living as a writer.

David Magee: I think it was more a troubled look of, 'I’m afraid your ambitions are set too high.' I don’t think she thought I could.

Sara Pentz: I see. But what did you know about yourself that made it possible for you to say that? And how old were you when you said you wanted to be a writer?

David Magee: I was 12, and I knew that I liked the idea of doing something unusual. I liked the idea of helping people understand things. I liked the idea of trying to find out what made people, places, or things different. I was always fascinated by how the weather changed, or in changes at the University. I was always asking a hundred questions about the things around me and trying to learn about them.

I remember as a kid being so fascinated by the weather because no one could really explain to me why it changed so unexpectedly sometimes. It was just my nature to try to learn and explain. Even as youngster, I spent a lot of time trying to explain the weather to people. I still do that, in fact.

Sara Pentz: Did you know that you had a talent? Did the process of writing come easily to you?

David Magee: Yeah. You know, it really did. There’s been a big learning curve. I write so much better now than I did a year ago, and so much better than I did three years ago. It’s pretty amazing. It’s a continual improvement. It was something that came easy to me, which now seems like a pretty raw form.

Sara Pentz: Tell me a little bit about your family – mother, father, siblings.

David Magee: Well, I had a mother, father, and one sister growing up in Oxford. It’s an interesting story; it’s not one I’ve written about, but I was adopted. The interesting story is the whole thing about how I got dropped into Oxford. I came in as one person, got adopted, and I was dropped into this community. I was so intrigued by the writers and writing that it finally rubbed off on me. Isn’t that weird?

Sara Pentz: You have very fond feelings about your family? They must have been very supportive of you.

David Magee: Oh absolutely, and they still are. My parents still live in Oxford. My Dad is retired from the University. My mother is retired from the University and they still live on University Avenue. It’s a house that everybody passes who comes into town for ball games at Ole Miss. The support has been incredible. My mother is not frowning at me anymore, I’ll tell you that. She’s pretty clear that I can do this.

Sara Pentz: What about your first love?

David Magee: Oh, wow. I have a hard time putting my finger on that one. Truly, I can tell you my wife was. I met her on my second day at Ole Miss. I had girlfriends before that, but they were just kind of disposable.

Sara Pentz: That’s really fortunate. And you’ve been married for how long?

David Magee: It is 19 years this January.

Sara Pentz: It’s a good thing you remembered that.

David Magee: Mm-hmm. We met on the second day of school, but she didn’t date me right away. It took her about two years to start going out with me.

Sara Pentz: How many children do you have? And what are their ages?

David Magee: William is the 16-year-old, Hudson is the 14-year-old son, and Mary Halley is 12.

Sara Pentz: What is it about Ole Miss that makes everybody so reverent and down on their knees about this place?

David Magee: I don’t know. It’s funny because I’m a lifelong Mississippian, except for the three years I moved here to the Chattanooga area, in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. I moved by choice. To be honest, I’m still Mississippian and I follow impeccably close to what goes on there. I am a Mississippian; I lived in Mississippi for 37 years of my life.

But the reason I moved is exactly because of that reverence. It’s not that it was a turn-off, but it’s just because I felt it was important to have some time in life a little bit removed. I fell under that as well, and it was a good thing, but I felt like it was important for me to truly appreciate and understand Mississippi.

Some people have gone north to do it. I’m a Southerner; it didn’t make much sense to get too far north, but I did get away to an environment that is somewhat removed. I really did it because I wanted to have a more objective perspective. I think that comes from old, generational Southern tradition of deep pride and defense of who you are and what you believe in.

People are convinced that when you’re standing in the grove at the University of Mississippi that you’re in the center of the universe. There is a prideful feeling that most get from that. It’s an intense defense and love of people, place, and time. I had the same thing. I had it my whole life. I woke up one day and thought that I at least need to get somewhere where I can focus from a distance on the state of Mississippi, the University, Oxford, and my whole existence there, to better understand it.

To keep writing about the South in general and I always come back to Mississippi. I’m a columnist for the Chattanooga Times Free Press. I looked back and I was embarrassed the other day. Chattanooga is a very vibrant community and I’m embarrassed at how many times references to Mississippi have come up in my columns. I never get away from that.

Sara Pentz: But your readers understand that?

David Magee: I think so. I’m sure they understand it. The feedback says they understand it. It’s who I am.

Sara Pentz: Describe the objectivity you got when you moved away from Oxford to Tennessee?

David Magee: Well, I’m still getting it. It might be premature. It’s only been three years. For starters, I think what I’m beginning to realize is that there is an amazing group of very talented people throughout the state of Mississippi. When you take into consideration the population and education level, it really shouldn’t be so. But compared to other states with similar populations and demographics – here comes that pride thing again – we’re off the chart. There is such an incredible group of people who have believed they can succeed at a national level and that have made a difference on a national level. They think big and act big, and believe their voice, art, or opinion matters.

When I decided to be a writer full-time, I made myself a note on a piece of paper: I will be a nationally successfully author. It was instilled in me that if I was going to write, I wasn’t just going to write; I was going to write at the top level possible. That goes back to that thing where people believe they can contribute at that level and do. It’s really unreasonable for a state that size. That’s one of the things I’ve learned.

Looking back at it, Mississippi is backwards in so many ways. That’s completely true, but it’s outrageously progressive in many ways.

Sara Pentz: Give me an example of backwards.

David Magee: Well, the state is still––there are regions where poverty is still so extreme. Oxford is a great example because it’s a contradiction of the state. Here is this hamlet of a town that is not representative of the statewide demographics. And yet, it is kind of the center of the power source. Everybody from Jackson and a lot of people from the coast gather, celebrate, rejoice, and make decisions. It’s a contradiction in many ways to the rest of the state. The state is still hurting in so many ways of disproportionate income and education levels. Many people are progressing farther and faster than they ever imagined in that state, but there are also many people who aren’t off square one.

Sara Pentz: Give me an example of the flip side of that.

David Magee: The flip side is that you have a level of affluence, and I don’t necessarily mean economically. It kind of gets back to affluence in thought process and believing they can achieve. It’s affluence in friends in the right places. People in Mississippi are more well connected than maybe any state in the country. That’s both ends of the spectrum there.

Sara Pentz: I just finished reading again your blog. I’m thinking how utterly charming, and of course one chuckles, laughs, and smiles. At the same time, you make a very important point in each of your stories.

David Magee: Well, I appreciate that. That’s my style; that’s what I do. I’ve got a book of Southern humor coming out, and my wife says that’s such a lame word. How can you even call that humorous? But it’s light on serious subjects that I come back to. It’s that kind of stuff. I like to have a little chuckle over it because we need to. I still tend to be issues-based, no matter what it is. It’s all kind of introspective in ways that we all relate to.

Sara Pentz: How would you describe the issues that are most important to you?

David Magee: By far, the issues I care most about are issues of the contemporary South. It’s this whole new, new South thing. We’ve changed so fast and drastically that, at times, some of us are getting a little full of ourselves. We’ve still got some major challenges.

I’m real intrigued by this new, new South thing. There is this hipness and feeling of energy and achievement, but yet we’ve got some major issues – from obesity to poor public education.

The seatbelt thing is a case in point. This study comes out that people are increasingly buckling up in America, but guess where we still aren’t buckling up? It’s right down in the heart of Dixie. I’m right there as one of them. I’ve been battling that myself because I’ve probably got too much redneck imbedded in me to totally erase. That’s why Britney Spears was riding around with the baby in the front seat of her car not too long ago. She grew up on the Mississippi border in a small town in Louisiana. She can’t shake that.

Sara Pentz: So it’s really all about independence?

David Magee: Yeah, absolutely. It’s a battle to hold onto that independence. I’ve kind of laughed at that Southern shtick of people talking about hanging onto to these traditions. Innocently, with the seatbelt thing, I’ve found myself doing it.

Sara Pentz: That’s kind of what I’m getting at. It’s like, don’t let the government move into my life. I’m a Southerner; I have this. How would you describe that? Are you political?

David Magee: Well, you know what’s funny? Increasingly, I’m not. This fits very oddly with Mississippi because most Mississippians are so strongly so. I used to be. I find myself becoming more non-political the older I get. I’ve kind of taken on the yoke I’m wearing as I’ve neared my 40^th birthday. All the writing that I do is non-political and aimed at people. It is aimed at all walks of life and all people to help them understand who they are and what their time and place is. That’s a conscious decision I’ve made.

I’m going to take the peoples’ party. That sounds so hokey and people will make arguments that I can’t do that. I’m trying to help people understand who they are so they can go cast their strong party vote. That’s all I can tell you.

Sara Pentz: You were an advertising executive?

David Magee: Yes,with the Godwin Group. They’re a real powerhouse of an agency. I was largely involved in the community branding type aspects. I’m real fascinated by community branding. I was also in a sales type of role because I like people. I still do some freelancing. I was helping an agency out of Atlanta not too many months ago. A pretty large public American corporation was re-branding. I went in there and helped them with some scheming on re-branding. That gets into that people thing; trying to put your finger on what somebody is, or what a company is.

My experience at Godwin was instrumental in helping to understand how to work with these big corporations like Ford, Nissan, and John Deere. That is critical. Godwin is based out of Jackson. It’s a very significant player throughout the region and even nationally. I had some great mentors there in Philip Shirley and Danny Mitchell, who are still running the company.

One of the things I learned was the secret to navigating corporations. It’s hard to take a large corporation like John Deere and do a book project that everybody is supporting. It’s not easy. Typically, they say no. Some of those lessons I learned along the way were just invaluable to me.

Sara Pentz: You have a passion for untold stories.

David Magee: Yeah, that is my deal. I like to go in and find this unique thing. I’m just finishing a book right now. It’s about the Moon Pie.

Sara Pentz: Oh yes, tell me.

David Magee: I did this as kind of a – at first I was doing it for fun. It turned out that it’s probably going to be one of my bigger books. There has been so much preordering, and the chains are all on it. Everybody is excited about it. I never saw that coming. I just thought it would be interesting and fascinating. The reason it interested me is because the Moon Pie is a symbol of second or third generations of the South. It’s a comfort food that people relate to and have memories of.

Everybody has a story about Moon Pies in the South. I remember having them with my grandfather and with my friends. I’ve had Moon Pies with my kids. I took this thing and instead of writing some stale history of it starting in 1917, I wrote it in a first-person approach. I wrote it as a biography of the snack. That’s the subtitle: Biography of an Out-of-This-World Snack. I just thought that was the most outrageous thing.

I ran into a guy who writes street lit. I ran into him in Washington. He walked up to me, saw the Moon Pie cover I had with me, and he said, “So you wrote a book about a cookie? That’s the damnedest thing I’ve ever heard of.” I said, “You get this?” He said, “Oh yeah, I get it.” That’s the whole thing. The whole concept of writing a book about a cookie is outrageous.

The Moon Pie is a very Southern snack. It’s a traditional thing. It’s a marshmallow sandwich, four inches in diameter. It is cookies sandwiched around marshmallow, coated in chocolate, vanilla, or banana flavoring. It’s a round snack; it’s a Moon Pie.

Sara Pentz: Alright, then what does Moon Pie really mean?

David Magee: Well, it’s this, um...it is representative of who I am today as a 21^st Century Southerner. Because it has made memories for Southerners back through my grandparents, those parlayed to my parents and then to me. I’m a conglomeration of those two generations of memories, and the Moon Pie is that one signifying thing. If you got to put your finger on the memories that have passed from one generation to the other in the South, it’s the one thing I can pull out and go, ah, this signifies it right here.

Sara Pentz: How did it ever get its name?

David Magee: It goes back to the Chattanooga Bakery, which makes the Moon Pie. They were looking for a new product. A salesman up in the Appalachian mining country in 1917 asked one of the miners. The miner told him that they didn’t want any of his products because they were ginger snaps and other run-of-the-mill stuff. They could get those anywhere. “Well, what do you want?” the salesman asked. The guy stood up and said, “We want something this big. We want it to be filling and affordable.” He held his hands up in the shape of a moon.

This salesman went back and came up with this idea. Workers at the bakery were taking graham crackers and making their snack, dipping them down into marshmallow and putting it in the window to dry. They came up with the idea of making a big round snack, taking that concoction and pouring chocolate over it.

Sara Pentz: It’s a wonderful story.

David Magee: You ought to read the book. I write the thing and I can’t even believe it. It’s so amazing, you know. Do you know how many Moon Pies they’ve sold since then? Like $4 billion! McDonald’s has nothing on the Moon Pies.

Sara Pentz: Before we move onto a few other things about your writing, what is your sense of humor? How do you describe it? There is definitely a strong voice.

David Magee: It’s interesting that you’re writing this because, to be honest, it’s funny. Since I’ve left Mississippi – I had to leave to get that. The general Southern reading public is really going to see that part of me, beginning with this Moon Pie book on through that Southern humor book. That’s really the David Magee of the 21^st Century that people are going to come to know. I think it’s a soft kind of understated edginess. I got a pretty sarcastic view of this place that I love incredibly; but it’s a pretty hard, sarcastic view. I deliver it in this soft, unassuming Southern humility way that allows me to get away with it.

I’ve tackled issues; I tackled this crystal meth thing, which I think might be on my blog. I tackled the whole issue in a column in the Times Free Press. It was probably the most significant feedback I’ve ever gotten on a column, and I was hard on Southern women about the problem we have with the underemployed and underappreciated women who are increasingly turning to crystal meth. They’re just killing and destroying a whole generation of their children because they’re not properly caring for them. It is serious stuff and I really took issue with it.

I did it with an edgy humor all throughout. People were torn. There is evidence that these women who get into these problems – there is evidence that they literally eat their scabs to get drug residue from them. I made fun of that. It made some people almost sick to their stomachs. They were torn between laughing and crying. How can you take this deeply serious issue and make a joke? I had one woman email me and ask me, how can you make a joke about that? I had a lot of people email and say, that was the funniest thing they’d ever read.

The ultimate aim was to make people sit and say, damn, we’ve got a problem. My humor is soft and understated, but it’s pretty edgy. I deliver it with an “aw shucks” humility and I try to be humble. It is pretty biting underneath.

Sara Pentz: Do you have literary heroes, and if so, who are they?

David Magee: The funniest thing is that I have two, and they’re both from Oxford: John Grisham and Larry Brown. John Grisham maybe doesn’t get the acclaim he deserves; he just gets the royalty checks.

Sara Pentz: That’s not bad.

David Magee: That’s right. He gets the royalty checks, but not the acclaim he deserves. I can tell you that it takes far more talent to write books that millions of people want to read. Sometimes you can do something a little more artsy with less time and effort. It gets back to what you were saying. People underestimate how much talent John Grisham has and what he can write if wants to. It’s much more difficult to come up with a style that millions of people keep going back to.

Larry Brown is a person who did the critical acclaim. He’s deceased now. But he never quite got the success he deserved. Because I’ve know him most of my life in Oxford – he was a fireman and we maintained a relationship. He taught me that he worked exceptionally hard to become a writer. There was never anything easy about it. He wrote page after page, burned some of them and threw them away. He worked like a madman to find that success. So it was both of those.

Sara Pentz: In a way, do you feel that your writing comes easier than what you’re describing about John Grisham and Larry Brown?

David Magee: Yeah, it comes pretty easy because of the subjects I’ve done. It’s easy when I just go research and put stuff together, but now that I’m moving more into a creative bent, it’s much harder.

Sara Pentz: How do you describe good literature? What is it?

David Magee: I think it comes in all shapes, sizes, and forms. It’s defined as what people want to read. It’s good if somebody wants to read it. You can find good literature on a blog. Ninety-nine percent of blogs have bad literature on them. It’s trash, because they can’t write well and they just want to spout off. But I’ve found some blogs that I’d call good literature. If people really warm to it and like it, it’s good. That is absolutely how to define it. It comes in all shapes, sizes, and forms. I think that people get awful snotty about it in the industry. Good writing is not something that didn’t sell well that some noted person called good. If it’s written in a way that moves and shakes people, I call that good.

Sara Pentz: How do you come up with the subjects for your columns?

David Magee: It’s just whatever the spirit moves me to do. I try to stay abreast of the issues, and whatever moves me. The seatbelt one was one. Someone in Georgia was trying to usher in a seatbelt law. It’s all out there.

Sara Pentz: I’m going to quote something. “David Magee is unafraid to say the unspoken and he uses humor to illuminate the trickiest and stickiest issues facing us who live in and love today’s South.” How do you feel about that comment, and why are you unafraid?

David Magee: I’ll tell you why I’m unafraid. There are two reasons. I used to be afraid. Then, in my early 20s, I became a news editor of a community newspaper. That will harden your skin in a hurry. Then I did a couple of terms on the Oxford City Council. By the time you’ve been the news editor of a community newspaper and sat on a city council, you get over it real quick. Your skin, by then, is thick.

I emerged from a young person who was fairly sensitive to someone, from a public stance; it doesn’t much bother me. They can say whatever they want. I pretty much write what I want now and send it. I don’t even look back. I wouldn’t have used to do that, but I’m older and wiser. I’m just not real sensitive about what people say about me. I can truly say that with all honesty.

I had a review a couple years ago; it was a half-page story in the New York Times about one my books. It ripped me up one side and down the other. It just destroyed me. It was a half-page in the business section of the Sunday New York Times. It was the biggest book review I’ve ever received and it was awful. You get a few of those kinds of things and you realize – if I can sit there and look at my name getting butchered in the New York Times, people can say whatever they want.

Sara Pentz: And don’t you find that you get to be a better writer?

David Magee: Oh, way better. I took a quantum leap when I finally said that I don’t really care. I’m just going to write it and whatever.

Sara Pentz: And the deeper you get into the heart or soul of what you are, the better the writing.

David Magee: No doubt. It just gets better and better. It’s because I’m just now really hitting the nerve of what I’m supposed to be doing. I have said that I’m going to go after this and it is the level of success I’m going to have. I’ve had some success, but I feel like such a failure because I feel I’ve got so many miles to go. I’m trying to stream some stories together and trying to get them done as fast as I can to try and make a dent. I can’t go fast enough. I haven’t ever really gotten to the point...in 5 years, I might finally be at the point where I can turn around and say it’s been a pretty good ride. I will have achieved some of what I wanted.

I’m just scratching the surface. I’ve been in a whirlwind for a few years and haven’t even taken a breath to analyze that there’s been any good out of it.

Sara Pentz: Okay, last question. Will the South rise up again?

David Magee: Well, it is. It’s in the midst of doing so. That’s what is so beautiful about it. The South is completely rising up. If you look at it, it is really becoming a center of movement and intelligence and politics in the 21^st Century. The South is completely rising again. My issue and problem that I take from it is that we’re taking a bunch of steps forward, but we’re leaving some steps way back there behind. This contemporary South is really something that is on the move, it’s an exciting place to be, and it feels right, but we’ve got a lot of problems. A lot of them are related to the same baggage we had a century before.

Whites and blacks still don’t go to church together. I’m not saying they should; I’m just saying that it’s an illustration that we really haven’t made much racial progress at all. I don’t care what anybody says. That’s just the biggest farce; that’s just people wanting to feel good about themselves. We’ve still got rural poverty and now obesity is creeping in.

I wrote a column about this poor-right-white-trash movement in the South becoming beggars. We’re seeing this all over the place because economically, they are just so behind. We’ve got a whole culture of lower-middle class beggars coming along. Because there aren’t jobs on the farm anymore and there isn’t much opportunity. The 21^st Century South is light years ahead and is completely on the move, but I like to stop and look at some of our issues and problems. You can go find Gucci loafers for sale in Jackson, Mississippi now, and you can find some trendy restaurants. But there are still some backwards elements to our culture that we’ve got to overcome.

Sara Pentz: Someone I was interviewing recently said the South has never really gotten over the War.

David Magee: I think that’s true. There are still hurt feelings that run deep. Down in Trenton, Georgia, they approved a few months ago the Confederate battle flag to fly over city hall. The citizens voted for it. What the hell are people thinking? I have no idea.

Sara Pentz: David, I know that I don’t have to wish you good luck. It’s going to be such a ride with your new book. Thank you for taking a time out from writing to talk to the Mississippi Capitalist.