★ Authentic, diverse female voices in journalism: Twenty-two women journalists from Southeast Asia share firsthand accounts of reporting on politics, culture, and social issues within a male-dominated industry—revealing their professional resilience, empathy, and a perspective long underrepresented in regional media narratives.
★ Broad in scope, rich in insight: The collection spans five key themes—politics, travel, culture, lifestyle, and human-interest features—offering both sharp analysis of major events and intimate “stories behind the headlines,” showcasing the emotional depth and versatility of journalistic storytelling.
★ Edited by an experienced media practitioner: Reta Lee brings nearly two decades of regional media experience—from print entertainment reporter to digital editor-in-chief. She has interviewed global celebrities, published her own book, and deeply understands Southeast Asia’s media landscape and audience sensibilities.

Twenty-two women journalists in Southeast Asia share their personal experiences in essays spanning politics, culture, travel, human interest and lifestyle.
In these insightful and compelling essays, the former and current journalists take us through the journey as a woman covering news in male-dominant newsroom culture while keeping eyes on the ground. The Stories Women Journalists Tell is an inspiring collection of essays that celebrates kinships, camaraderie and strength, while highlighting our most important and interesting history in events and news.
Themes
1. Politics: The essays reflect events that happened in a local environment while providing balanced coverage of key organisations and political events.
2. Life & Style: The essays in this volume foreground the role that life & style writers and editors played in reporting news while staying grounded in an image-obsessed world.
3. Human Interest: The human interest essays here focus on details that resonate emotionally with the readers, and sometimes can be described as ‘getting the story behind the story’ or ‘putting a face on the news.’
4. Culture: The essays discuss a particular belief or values of a particular group of people at a particular time.
5. Travel: The essays here are part travelogue, part literature, which can double up as a historic travel narrative.

Reta Lee
Reta Lee is currently working as an editor-in-chief for an online media brand and has previously written for many Malaysian, Singaporean and International publications.
Reta's first foray in publishing began in 2006 after university, when she was writing for two entertainment magazines, hot and HELLO! in Malaysia, covering both lifestyle and entertainment beats (both magazines have since ceased). Then, she rode the digital wave in 2009 onwards, when she wrote for MSN and Business Insider. As an entertainment journalist by heart - she's interviewed everyone from Lady Gaga, to James Marsden, Sophie Turner, John Lithgow and Susan Downey. She is also the author of a book, #thatPRStory.
When Reta is not writing, she finds time to moderate panel sessions at the previous Millennial 20/20 Summit in 2016 and 2017, and Fashion Tech Summit as part of Singapore Fashion Week in 2017. She also loves catching up on drama series, practising yoga, reading, travelling the world and dabbles in analog photography.
She lives in Singapore with her partner and two cats.