AWA Magazine
Celebrate stories. Create community.
February - March 2025 issue
Editor's Note
I always like to start our first issue of the year with a theme inspired by that year’s Chinese zodiac which, for 2025, is the Snake!
Despite the snake’s association with wiliness, threat and potential for deceit, it also has positive associations. The symbol of the Hippocratic Oath, for example - the pledge of care all new physicians must take and which originated from the ancient Greeks, includes a snake. Due to the ability of snakes to shed skin, they represented healing and the potential for transformation. In Hinduism, the snake represents the cyclical nature of life, death and rebirth. To the Chinese, the ability of snakes to move flexibly and strategically to evade predators and hunt prey is linked to the qualities of wisdom and strength. Here is a quick scoop on how our writers tackled our 2025 theme of renewal and healing:
Rhonda Bernstein, for our Writers’ Block column, offers us a poignant poem of a mother wrestling to find love and hope in the midst of grief and despair.
Andrea Lee validates our fear of snakes by tracing their evolutionary roots. Realizing that this fear is an adaptation we no longer need, however, she challenges us to consider what underlying fears we might consider letting go of because they no longer serve us.
Mandakini’s book review for this issue features the best-selling book by Korean author Hwang Bo-Reum about a career-jaded woman who opens a bookstore where life-changing friendships are formed.
Dulce Zamora reflects on one of her earliest misadventures traveling as a family with young children and how, in the midst of chaos they created lasting fond memories and turned “epic fails into vacation gold.”
If concrete action ideas are what you’re looking for this new year, Stephanie Kolentsis lists a variety of new activities you could try (pottery? trivia night? water-workouts? pole dancing, anyone?) and Andrea McKenna Brankin reviews the wonders of body scrubs as a form of self-care.
Finally, if you happen to love cats, Lena Sharp’s essay will surely rejuvenate your cat devotion by taking us on a journey of how the whimsical art of Louis Wain first elevated the status of cats in modern society.
Here's to a rejuvenated and wiser you, this 2025 year of the Snake!
Warmly,
Suellen Lee (Editor) & Cynthia Muthyala (Assistant Editor)
Meet Our Team
The AWA Magazine is composed of a group of volunteer women who love to share stories, adventures and all things related to living in Singapore and Southeast Asia, while having fun along the way.
Click on the pictures to learn a bit more about us!
“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
International Storytelling Center
Calling Storytellers!
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 us at editor@awasingapore.org. We'd love to meet up over a cup of coffee (or a Zoom call) and discuss your interest in being part of the magazine team!
