"Garden & Gun" magazine finds uncommon success

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Rebecca Darwin had it pretty good. She was a big-time magazine executive in New York City, and the first female publisher of The New Yorker.

Then, everything changed. "I think it was divine intervention. My husband decided to go to seminary. He took a calling with the church here in Charleston. And that's how I got to Charleston." The newly appointed preacher's wife planned to slow down, but along came a second surprise. She was asked to start a new magazine, "Garden and Gun."

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It's a gutsy title launched at a gut-wrenching time -- just as the great recession hit in 2007. And just as everybody believed that print was dying, Darwin went ahead anyway. "I mean, if you think about what most magazines do, they do a lot of coverage of the East Coast, the Northeast and the West Coast. And there's kind of this whole world in between that they don't really cover."

In truth, Garden and Gun isn't really about guns or gardens. Both are metaphors for the Southern lifestyle. It's authentic, old-school and unapologetic. The only subjects off-limits? Politics, religion and SEC football.