AWA Magazine
Celebrate stories. Create community.
Nov-Dec 2025 issue
Editor's Note
As 2025 draws to a close, we often find ourselves reflecting on the rhythms we return to and the ways we have changed. Our theme for this issue, Transformations & Traditions, invites us to notice that delicate balance — what we hold on to, what we release, and what we allow to evolve.
AWA member Devika Misra revisits the legacy of the Singapore Writers Festival, now in its 28th year. While this year’s festival looks toward “the shape of things to come,” its history reveals how cultural traditions are never static — they shift year by year, voice by voice, story by story.
We witness another kind of transformation in Jessica Kudlacek’s geometric photo-series of Singapore’s architecture. Her images invite us to look again: to see structure, pattern, and memory layered into the built environment. Through her lens, the city becomes a reminder that place both shapes us and mirrors who we are becoming.
Sometimes change unfolds in the smallest, most personal rituals. In Traditions, Bhavani Krishnamurthy shares her lovingly determined Deepavali morning routines — and the unexpected realization, half a world away in Azerbaijan, that tradition need not be perfectly preserved to remain meaningful. Her story reminds us that rituals are living things; they travel with us, shift with us, and often find new forms of their own.
Transformation also appears in the second installment of Daniela Schreier’s memoir series, An Affair to Remember, where she rediscovers life-altering kinship and cross-cultural connection over an intimate Christmas dinner in Singapore.
For this issue’s Group Spotlight, Suellen Lee visits the Creative Hands group and unexpectedly rekindles a nostalgic appreciation for her grandmother’s gift of sewing and cross-stitch — a spark of hope that she may someday re-apprentice herself to that craft.
In Mandakini Arora’s AWA Book Review column, she considers Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy’s powerful memoir of love, pain, identity, and resilience — a vivid reminder that transformation isn’t always gentle. Sometimes it’s fierce, complicated, and forged through the courage to name what we inherit and what we must remake.
Finally, Stephanie Kolentsis’ warm, practical guide to celebrating Christmas in Singapore offers another view on evolving traditions, with ideas for tropical décor, relaxed holiday meals, conscious gifting, and ways to give back. It’s an invitation to blend nostalgia with new practices that feel true to life in the tropics.
As we enter the festive season, may we honor what we choose to keep, make space for what is changing, and greet the new year with curiosity for all that is still unfolding!
Warmly,
Cynthia Muthyala (Assistant Editor) & Suellen Lee (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 building community 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!
