Iowa has long been seen as a flyover state — the place where potatoes, no, corn, no, pigs, are grown. Erin O’Grady and Heidi Petersen are looking to change that with a publication that is controversial, sleek, cutting-edge and witty: Mox Magazine. 

“Both of us had the opportunity to move away from Iowa many, many, many times,” said O’Grady, a student in creative apparel design who also is known as burlesque dancer Phoenix L’Amour.

Mox aims to showcase local business and culture in an unconventional way — not by telling the same stories that are heard over and over. 

“There are other things out there that are just as cool,” said Petersen, a 2010 alumna in integrated studio arts.  “Iowa’s not that big, and people don’t even know about things that are a few hours away.”

The two magazine lovers started working on Mox early this year, after growing tired about reading stories that only applied to the coasts. The concept has expanded to include fashion, culture, music, food and art, and while the first issue will focus mainly on Iowa, they hope to eventually cover the entire Midwest. 

And, they’ll do it without sugar-coating. 

“We want to ask the questions that people around here don’t want to ask,” Petersen said.

Both said they have blunt, to-the-point personalities and they want their magazine to match. They are inspired by publications such as Nylon, Interview and Paper. 

Landing an interview with GroupLove, a band who’s national tour will stop in Des Moines in May, was an exciting moment for the young publication and an example of how they hope to promote big events in the Midwest. Instead of the standard questions, they tend to ask musicians about costume malfunctions or what bands “make them want to puke.”

Both have day jobs — working about five feet away from each other at Younker’s beauty counters — so they camp out in the back booth of London Underground to manage every aspect of the publication. While they are planning for a June release, they want to make sure Mox lives up to their exacting standards before releasing it. 

“It’s going to be beautiful,” O’Grady said, “We’re not going to release something that we’re not 100 percent about.”

They hope the publication will be a keepsake, with beautiful photography and perforated tear-outs. 

One of the hardest early decisions was finding a name that could sum up all the wit, determination and energy the publication hopes to embody. After trying hundreds of terms, O’Grady and Peterson found a word from the ’30s that sums up their forward-looking attitude: moxie.