AWA Magazine: Then & Now
- Suellen Lee
- Sep 8
- 8 min read
Updated: Sep 18
Group Spotlight, by Suellen Lee
Confession: I do not have any professional experience in media or publishing, other than my graduate thesis and some academic papers I co-authored. I was thus the last person to imagine myself leading a volunteer-run magazine. Why this confession? Because I am now the editor of the AWA Magazine, a position I never thought I had a right to be in.
When I was recruited to the magazine, it was to replace Christi Elfein as graphic designer at the beginning of 2022. I volunteered but warned her that my only experience was cobbling together a “zine” for my church youth group as a teenager (we literally used scissors and gluesticks to cut, paste and photocopy our newsletters!) and then, as a college student in the 1990s, I had some exposure to using early Adobe software making campus flyers. "That's fine," she said, because all the graphic design decisions had already been made by her predecessor (another AWA lady who had left Singapore and who was an actual graphic designer). All I had to do was cut and paste photos and text into InDesign, the publishing software the magazine used at the time. “OK,” I thought. "Why not?" And then, "Maybe I will even write something."
Well, it has been an unexpected journey since then, of which I share more below. But I wanted to open this post with the story of how I got started in order to emphasize that you do not have to have publishing experience to be part of today's AWA Magazine team, which has changed a lot since I started and continues to evolve. Even though we still attract accomplished and experienced writers and photographers, we are an inclusive and supportive group (much like our AWA Writers’ Group, by the way, which is where I started building my confidence as a writer).
But first, in honor of AWA's 90th anniversary and Singapore's 60th as a nation, let’s take a little trip down memory lane and excavate some history about AWA’s magazine publication.
THEN: the Bamboo Telegraph / BT ... A Trip Down Memory Lane
Before it was the AWA Magazine, the American Women's Association publication was called the Bamboo Telegraph. Many who were AWA members before the COVID-19 pandemic will likely remember the splashy, colorful and elegant magazine that was delivered to their mailboxes monthly or bimonthly.
Covers of the Bamboo Telegraph from 2005, 2010, and 2015
Covers of the Bamboo Telegraph from 2020 (top row) and AWA Magazine from 2022 (bottom row)
The Bamboo Telegraph magazine, which required a dedicated group of volunteers and staff to produce every month or two, was actually the brainchild of a certain group of visionary members in 1985 to radically update the format of the original Bamboo Telegraph. The reason this change was dramatic was because the original Bamboo Telegraph was a simply typed newsletter, printed monthly on coarse recycled paper, that kept members informed about AWA's calendar of events and activities and the who's who on the board and committees, and sometimes provided member directory updates. With no pictures, no stories, the publication only required one person to put it together. Prior to the launch of the magazine format in 1985, all news articles and stories about AWA activities were published in the Singapore American newspaper, a publication of the American Association of Singapore (AWA once stood for the American Women's Auxiliary).
The original Bamboo Telegraph newsletter from the 1970s and early 1980s
Transforming the Bamboo Telegraph from a simple newsletter into a colorful, multi-paged, glossy magazine must have required both tremendous leadership and enthusiastic recruitment of committed volunteers to fill the roles of editors, photographers, typists, proofreaders, writers, graphic artists and, importantly, an advertising team because publishing 24-28 pages of glossy, colorful paper every other month comes with expenses. If you look at the rare production photos from the Bamboo Telegraph staff at work in 1986 (below), you might be able to imagine the flurry of dedication, teamwork, and coordination each magazine issue took!
From 1985 to 2020 (yes, 35 years!), the Bamboo Telegraph magazine thus integrated two major functions for the AWA: to update members about events and activities, who's who on the board and different committees, AND to share stories through words and pictures about the community's various activities and engagements.
NOW: Adapting to a Digital World
It is a given that COVID-19 accelerated the digital transformation of many spheres of life, from the personal and professional to whole industries. This was no different for AWA and the AWA Magazine (the magazine was renamed in mid-2020 for simplicity reasons), which saw funding for its physical publication indefinitely paused (see https://issuu.com/awabambootelegraph for our online archives from December 2019 to September 2022).
As Singapore society emerged from COVID-19 restrictions, the AWA pivoted to primarily using social media and WhatsApp communication platforms to communicate with its members instead of the now-online-AWA Magazine. With AWA groups being able to share pictures of their events and stories through WhatsApp and/or Facebook groups, a lot of the AWA Magazine's previous functions became redundant. When Jennifer Williams and Andrea Perez, my predecessors as Editors of the magazine, left Singapore in 2022 and 2023 respectively, I was left to grapple with how to pivot our group and grow it. With the core functions of our magazine becoming redundant the key question I was left with became: what stories had we left to tell?
It did not take me long to realize that there are still plenty of stories for us to tell. Just not stories for the primary purpose of showcasing AWA, which is what the Bamboo Telegraph and the old AWA Magazine did. The AWA and its groups now do that on their own. Yet, whenever I read stories and reviewed photographs provided by our writers and photographers, I somehow never failed to be moved, inspired, more curious. Our magazine had the potential to have a fundamentally different purpose and this was where I found the seedlings of my motivation to keep the AWA Magazine going and evolving as a digital publication after my predecessors left Singapore.
I realized that when I encountered the works of our contributors, whether in writing and/or photographs, I heard and saw their voices, their passions, and their journeys in learning more about themselves and the world around them. They told stories about faith, grief, longing, hope, and resilience as well as discovery and connection, whether their own or another's, and it was exciting for me to behold and witness as a reader. I loved hearing and seeing what they experienced, learned, celebrated, wondered about and, knowing how it is not easy for people to share their work, I both admired and respected their courage to be vulnerable and share part of their journeys with a broader audience. Whether they were new or veteran expats, or whether they - like me - have hybrid cultural identities, everyone had a voice to share about how they saw the world, what they felt, and how their views of the world and themselves changed somehow by their experiences living in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Above all, because I believe in the transformative power of personal expression, I know expressing oneself through writing, photography, and digital storytelling are ways that we find meaning in our lives.
The AWA Magazine therefore is now a potentially creative platform for member writers/bloggers, photographers, photojournalists and editors to tell stories for us and by us, about the lives we experience here in Singapore. Of course, we also work closely with the AWA Writers' Group because, if you want to write, it is within a community of writers that you really develop your voice and confidence (see Amanda Jaffe's beautiful ode to our supportive AWA writer's group and to Singapore for its 60th anniversary in this issue's Writers' Block column).
What stories would you want to tell, perhaps occasionally, perhaps to a broader audience than just through social media for your personal circles? You can tell stories about discovering food, culture, types of travel, architecture, fashion even. It does not matter what you choose, because if you find something interesting that you can dedicate energy to exploring and excavating, you have a voice to share. It does not have to be through words only either. As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Or perhaps, like me, you would like to be part of a small production team that promotes others.
“We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.” Jimmy Neil Smith, Int' Storytelling Center
Some team members shared about their experiences being part of the AWA Magazine Team:
What do you enjoy about being part of AWA Magazine?
Dulce: "I enjoy sharing stories about my family and working on a project (the magazine) with other women."
Lena: "It’s wonderful to network with fellow AWA members with shared interests in this field. It’s also a way of giving back to the AWA in a meaningful way, while staying connected, albeit from a distance."
In what ways has being part of the AWA Magazine helped you grow or enrich your life?
Lena: "It’s given me the discipline to keep looking out for stories that might be of interest to readers in Singapore while residing abroad - offering new perspectives on things that are often taken for granted."
Dulce: "In general, it is a gift to belong to a community of supportive women. Being part of the AWA Magazine team is a double blessing because it is produced by women for women. We feature not only stories about the greater AWA community, but we also share personal anecdotes and observations from the female lens. Plus, writing and producing a magazine itself is an art — an old craft that we work hard to reimagine, particularly during these fast-changing times. Indeed, the benefits of being part of the AWA magazine team are many! We could write a book about it! We could write an article! … oh wait. 🤓"
Our Magazine Team regularly meets for social lunches at Ahimsa Sanctuary!
Left picture (L-R): Stephanie Kolentsis, Dulce Zamora, Lena Sharp, Andrea Lee, Suellen Lee, Jessica Kudlacek, Mandakini Arora
Despite the fluidity of our team due to the transient nature of expatriate life, we are a group of dedicated volunteer writers, photographers, and editors who enjoy telling stories about topics that move us and shape us, and foster connections with others along the way.
I hope you have learned something interesting about us, and perhaps see yourself in this little corner of the AWA community we are trying to co-create. Or do you have a story idea that you would like help sharing with the AWA community? If so, feel free to reach out to editor@awasingapore.org to share more about your interests!
 | Suellen is a native Singaporean but grew up as a "Third Culture Kid" in Hong Kong and the US. She moved from San Francisco, California to Singapore in 2019 with her husband and three sons. They have since added another three furry members to their family, Ollie (a "Singapore special" dog), Panda and Piglet (twin cats). She runs, sometimes writes, and is a California licensed Clinical Psychologist with a part-time practice in Singapore. |
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 | The AWA Magazine team is a Special Interest group that strives to be a creative platform for AWA members to nurture and express their craft as storytellers, empower them to share their authentic voices as women who happen to live (or have lived) in Singapore, and forge meaningful connections along the way. If this sounds a little or a lot like you, we invite you to get in touch with editor@awasingapore.org to meet up over a cup of coffee (or a Zoom call) and discuss your interest in being part of the magazine team! |
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