When we first started talking about the idea of a lifestyle magazine devoted to the city of Suffolk back in the summer of 2009, there were those in the community — perhaps even those on our own staff — who wondered whether Suffolk had enough stories to tell, enough photogenic people and places, to fill a quarterly publication.

Having recognized that there’s plenty of content available to us and that there are advertisers who appreciate the opportunity to get their messages into the community through the medium of a glossy lifestyle publication, two years into the life of that publication, we have begun publishing six times a year, instead of just four.

And today we publish our first special edition of Suffolk Living magazine, a tribute to the eight editions that preceded it and to Homearama, the Tidewater Builders Association’s two-week home preview event that kicks off its third visit to Suffolk with a charity preview on Friday of the nine houses built for the event.

The combination of topics in the Suffolk Living sampler included with today’s newspaper is especially appropriate. A good lifestyle magazine recognizes that many of the most important moments in any life take place within the boundaries of whatever place we call “home,” and Homearama seeks to help people dream a little bit about their perfect home.

Since many of the visitors to Homearama will encounter Suffolk Living magazine there for the first time, we decided we wanted to give them a taste of what’s been published on our sister publication’s pages during the past couple of years. But we’ve also come to conclude that many of this newspaper’s readers are similarly unfamiliar with Suffolk Living, so we’ve also included the special edition in today’s newspaper.

Whether you’re visiting Suffolk especially for Homearama or you’re a Suffolk native and longtime reader of the Suffolk News-Herald, we hope you’ll enjoy this complimentary copy of Suffolk Living magazine. Maybe you’ll like it enough to want it delivered to your mailbox every other month; if so, you’ll find information included on how to subscribe.

Whether you choose to subscribe or to look for free copies of Suffolk Living on newsstands around the city, we hope you’ll keep reading this new publication. There are plenty more stories to be told about Suffolk, and we think you’ll be surprised at just how interesting the city can be.