It’s always rewarding to look back at SJ Mag’s printed pages to see all the incredible stories we covered over the past 12 months. As for choosing which ones to showcase, that’s the hard part.   Celebrity Stories

From Bev with Love
By Jayne Jacova Feld | January

Life After Game of Thrones
By Jayne Jacova Feld | February

Mayim Bialik
By Jayne Jacova Feld | June

Can’t Get Enough Gaten
By Kate Morgan | August

Bachelor on the Boards
By Elyse Notarianni | October

Covering celebrities is a thrill, especially when their ties to South Jersey run so deep. Take Egg Harbor Twp.’s Gaten Matarazzo. We’ve been watching the “Stranger Things” star grow up on the Netflix series since it started 6 years ago – we even published a Q&A with him in 2016, when he was just 14. Writing about the celebs we love to watch makes our job just that much better.

Benefits to Growing a Garden

July

Gardening expert Toni Farmer has been teaching SJ Mag’s Marianne Aleardi how to garden for 3 years now, and it’s starting to pay off (kind of). We’ve chronicled these valuable lessons in our Facebook video series “The Goal is to Become a Gardener” and asked Toni to share with our readers her green-thumb tips for this special feature.

Catch all 3 seasons of “The Goal is to Become a Gardener” on SJ Mag’s Facebook page.

Eagles coverage

Lane Johnson: Getting Better in the Bro Barn
By Dave Spadaro | January

Feeding the Birds
By Dave Spadaro | February

The Colorful World of Jason Kelce
By Dave Spadaro | June

The Year of Living Dangerously
By Sal Paolantonio | September

Haason Reddick: The Newest Philadelphia Eagle
By Dave Spadaro | September

Jalen Hurts: Believe
By Dave Spadaro | October

We count ourselves extremely fortunate that 2 of the best sources of Eagles’ insight write for SJ Mag. That would include Sal Paolantonio, a national senior correspondent for ESPN, who got us hyped up for the season with his notes about covering the Birds for 30 years. Meanwhile, Eagles Insider Dave Spadaro’s stories make us feel like we really know our favorite players.

The Rabbi and Recovery
By Kate Morgan | February
For years, Rabbi Michael Perice had a secret. He was in recovery for opioid addiction. The young spiritual leader took us through his thought process about being vulnerable and coming clean to his congregants – and how that leap of faith has helped countless others cope with addiction issues.

The First Mass Murder
By Felicia L. Niven | September
Long before gun violence regularly claimed our nation’s headlines, there was Howard Unruh, a U.S. veteran who shot 13 of his South Jersey neighbors in 1949. It was the first recorded mass shooting in our nation’s history, and yet many of the details of this story read like it could have happened this year.

Ready for a Reset
By Jayne Jacova Feld | March
We all felt pain and had to make changes over the last 2+ years of pandemic living. We interviewed people who took a hard look at their lives during the shutdown and decided to make bold changes in a time of great uncertainty.

Tiffany Valiante’s Last Night
By Kate Morgan | November
Just one look at the photo of Dianne and Steve Valiente on the railroad tracks where their daughter was found dead, and you see deep love and deep pain. That visible agony is what has fueled their 7-year quest to learn more about their teenager daughter’s violent death.