The tyranny of the writer brand

Soulful Woman Club has a new name!

I’ve been quiet for a few weeks on my channels.

Sure, I’ve had sh*t to do, but my silence is mainly because I decided to rename my channels and writer brand from Soulful Woman Club to my name: Anthea van den Bergh.

I was a teenager during the beginning of the blog era and it was and still is the fashion to give your blogs, your channels, your brand, some clever name.

And believe me, I have agonised over many, many of these names.

But I’ve come to believe that there’s a kind of tyranny in the idea that as creatives we have to produce one kind of thing, be one kind of thing, in order to find an audience and be successful.

I’m a Gemini Moon for crying out loud, I sprout new interests weekly! Even with the things I stick to like writing, I am endlessly curious and inventive with different forms of it.

So the problem, or simply the reality, is that my writing and creative interests evolve and change - and each time that happens I stop sharing my work online because it no longer fits with the writer brand I’ve created.

Well, now I am promising nothing but myself.

Between me and you, I think my name has a lot of character.

Anthea van den Bergh

Anthea - Greek name meaning ‘blossom’

van den Bergh - Dutch / Belgian surname meaning ‘from the mountain’

So here’s what to expect: The unexpected!

One week you’ll get love poetry, another an essay about self-esteem and forgiving your high school bully, the next week a snippet of romance fantasy fiction!

I had the blessing of working with a designer last year to do my branding and having listened to my agonising all my different creative interests, she came up with the following slogan:

“Where creativity meets empowerment”

She nailed it.

Because regardless of what I write or produce, there is always a through-line of empowerment.

Now that I can stick with.

As always, thank you for being here.

Ciao,

Anthea