Welcome to Cultural Tendencies! This is my happy place. The newsletter explores our endlessly fascinating and frustrating world. Always curious, often funny, sometimes poignant. A personal take on culture, history, science, democracy, LGBTQ+, AI, and other things that tickle my fancy and hopefully yours.
Why a newsletter? Social media is fun, but it’s sometimes too fast and messy. A newsletter comes straight from me to you without having to compete for attention with cute cats (a battle you can't win) or wrestle with algorithms that prioritize conflict over understanding (annoying). A newsletter is an excellent way to dive into exciting conversations without too many distractions. It’s also a great way to keep in touch. Yes, you’ll make me very happy every single time you drop a line or two in the comments.
What you get:
Free subscribers (which is all of you for now):
One newsletter every other week.
Access to the full archive.
Post comments and join the community.
Is that all? No, I have all sorts of plans, but let’s get into a nice rhythm with this first. Then, I’ll add on a few extras along the way. Drop me a line at anna@culturaltendencies.com, and let me know what you want to see here.
Subscriptions are free for now, but if you want to make a pledge for the future, please don’t hesitate to do so. Pledges are one way - not the only way - for me to gauge this newsletter's value to you.
Who is Anna Troberg?
I’m an avid writer who has found my happy place on Substack.
I’m the elected President of the Swedish union DIK, but I don’t work on Substack. I just frolic around writing, reading and making new friends.
So, what led me here? It’s hard to say. Everything and nothing. My first job was making creative wedding cakes. Then, I successively became a fiction translator, the head of a publishing house, a publishing consultant, the Swedish Pirate Party’s leader, and Wikimedia Sweden’s Executive Director. Finally, I was elected President of the union DIK, which organises those who work in culture, communication and the creative industry. (Think librarians, archaeologists, museologists, translators, communicators, game creators, and everything in between.) A position I am still in and love every minute of, by the way.
Somewhere along the way, I also found the time to write thousands of blog posts, hundreds of published articles and a novel, Bosses from Hell (published in Sweden, Finland and Norway.) Somehow, this all led me to Substack. So, here I am.
When I don’t write, I speak - a lot. Too much, according to my wife. So, it’s very fortunate that I sometimes get to go and speak away from home so she gets some peace and quiet. I have, for instance, given talks at the IFLA World Library And Information Congress in Helsinki, the ALIA (Australian Library Information Association) Conference in Brisbane, the Radio Vision Festival in New York, The Darklight Film Festival in Dublin, and Digikult in Gothenburg. I’ve also spoken at the European Parliament in Brussels, the Gothenburg Book Fair, the Swedish National Heritage Board’s annual conference and several Swedish Pride festivals.
A little bit more about me:
Lives: In an old Baptist Chapel south of Stockholm.
Family: A wife, five cats and a dog.
Fun facts: I run every day if I can. (My longest run streak was 808 days.) I love gaming, Dolly Parton, and Abba. Two life-size cardboard cutouts of Xena and Sarah Connor guard my home office. I collect signed photos of action heroines and signed first editions of Jeanette Winterson’s books. I love flea markets and buy weird bits and bobs that interest me, like a signal cannon, an old copper diving helmet, and an antique aeroplane propeller.
Anything more? Read the newsletter, and you’ll find out! ;-)
