Harvard and Athol—they lie at opposite sides of Worcester County and at opposite ends of the economic spectrum in Massachusetts. They are also featured and compared in the premier issue of Central Mass Magazine, in an article titled “Rich Town, Poor Town: A Tale of Two Communities.” Other stories in the first issue include “Persecution of the Beard in Leominster” and “Blue Eggs: Can They Save Our Farms?”

The full-color, monthly “living” magazine is the creation of Paul Della Valle of Sterling, the founder and former publisher of two weekly newspapers, the Lancaster Times and the Clinton Courier. Twenty thousand copies of the free magazine will be distributed to 600 locations in Worcester County, as well as Marlborough and Framingham, by Monday, April 3, said Della Valle in a brief telephone interview this week. Residents can pick it up at public libraries, convenience stores, and pizza and sandwich shops, he said.

There are no “lifestyle magazines” in Central Massachusetts for the general population, said Della Valle. “There’s the Pulse, but that’s geared more toward college students, and the others are aimed at the top 10 percent of consumers,” he said. “Central Mass Magazine’s editorial focus is to celebrate the whole broad area we live in and all the people in it. We will have something for everyone.”

Della Valle, who has written for Worcester Magazine and the Boston Globe and who teaches journalism at Northeastern University, said he “always thought I’d like to do a regional magazine.” After selling his Lancaster and Clinton weeklies to Community Newspaper Company in 2005, he worked briefly at Monster.com and at the Worcester County Food Bank, stints that led him to declare, “I realized I didn’t ever want to work for anybody else.”

The print magazine’s stable of “some of the finest reporters, writers, and photographers in the area” will be complemented by “an interactive website,” said Della Valle. It will eventually feature audio clips of columnists reading their work as well as live links and streaming video

Central Mass Magazine is published by Central Mass Media (www.centralmassmedia.com) with offices on Sterling Street in West Boylston.