Publisher ‘Exceeds’ Limits With Magazine

For advice on how to survive your parents’ divorce, turn to page 20 in eXceed’s summer issue. For teen role models, try page 18. For scandal or sex stories, grab a different magazine.

Devi Fournier, eXceed’s editor in chief, isn’t interested in trash.

“I wanted a co-ed, positive message,” Devi says. “If we can reach some kids, give them information they don’t know about or think about, discourage bad habits - that’s what I want.”

eXceed has been out for a year, but it’s new to Idaho. Devi brought the glossy, 52-page magazine with her when she moved with her neurosurgeon husband, Jeff McDonald, from Utah to Hayden Lake last spring.

A magazine for teens wasn’t Devi’s goal when she accepted a job with Fox-TV in Salt Lake City in 1987. She thought she wanted to report the news.

For a few months, she hosted 30-minute specials - upbeat programs that kept her spirits high. The experience led to a news reporting job and an awakening.

Devi was reporting a story where a recent teen drive-by shooting had occurred when she noticed kids hanging around. It was the middle of a school day.

She asked them why they weren’t in school. One freckled boy told her he’d been suspended for setting fire to his desk during class.

“I was in shock,” she says. “I didn’t even have a comeback.”

The boy’s answer troubled her so much that she lost interest in the story she was covering, and, not long after, in a news reporting career.

“I had to do all the negative stuff,” she says. “It just wasn’t me. I think people are sick of hearing about bad things.”

Her next job in a publishing house inspired Devi to publish her own magazine. For three years, she honed her writing skills and let her imagination feed her idea.

“I wanted to do something positive for kids,” she says.

A graphic designer teamed with Devi and they opened their own publishing business in 1995. The ultimate goal was to launch an upbeat magazine for teens, but they needed a solid foundation of clients first for financial stability.

By 1997, Devi was ready. The name eXceed fit the message she wanted to send kids - to go beyond the limits. The X stands for their generation.

Her business published a colorful brochure advertising the new magazine. Seven kids of varying races, some with braces or freckles or wild hair, smiled on the cover.

“We wanted to portray what eXceed is all about - real kids,” she says.

An advisory board that includes two teens helped her choose five kids to profile in the first edition. One was the high school Heisman Trophy winner who happened to live in Utah.

Schools supplied students to write about sports, arts and entertainment, and technology. Emilie Belotti, a 17-year-old foreign exchange student from France living with Devi, wrote about travel.

The magazine also included stories on social issues, health, fashion and careers written by adults.

Instead of stuffing eXceed with subscription cards, Devi included comment cards. She printed 18,000 magazines with financial help from a silent partner, sold them from newsstands for $2 a copy and distributed them free to schools.

Within weeks of the first printing, kids were calling, begging for writing opportunities. Comment cards came back with praise for eXceed’s real-people approach.

“They were very honest,” Devi says, laughing. “Some said it was too busy. Someone said there wasn’t enough in fashion about makeup, which was fine. This is co-ed.”

Since then, she’s published four more editions. eXceed comes out quarterly and costs $2 an issue. It’s still distributed mainly to schools, but a few hundred go to subscribers for $10 a year.

Students serve as interns and contributors. They write about their travels in the Andes and snowboarding, about the death of a sibling and living with hyperactivity.

“Attitude is everything,” says Devi, who has the final word on what’s printed. “They may not be the best writers, but if they have something they want to write, we’ll help.”

Belotti, who lives in Vaureal, France, has contributed to every issue. She writes about her trips inside the United States, the Euro, what French teens do for fun.

“I really want Americans to know what we do in France,” she says. She earns $25 for each story.

Since Devi moved to Hayden Lake, eXceed has been printed in Idaho. The “magazine for Utah teens” is now for teens of the West.

Her fall 1999 edition, which will hit newsstands in supermarkets and convenience stores in September, includes stories by Hayley Berg, a Moscow High School sophomore, and Mimi Elliot, a Georgetown University student who spends summers in Coeur d’Alene.

Devi plans to offer student writers at local schools the opportunity to see their work in print.

Eventually, she may go national. New Jersey’s Department of Education has asked her to publish a version of eXceed with an Eastern focus for its students.

The magazine isn’t a moneymaker yet, but profit wasn’t Devi’s goal.

“There’s nothing negative in it, no garbage and kids like it,” she says, a hint of triumph in her voice. “This is the first time I’ve done work that doesn’t ever feel like work.”

To subscribe or submit work, call Devi at (208)762-5300 or toll-free at 877-600-TEEN.