Over on his blog, The Metabunker, Matthias Wivel has a four-part interview with Anders Nilsen about his work and dealing with the death of his fiance:
You’re obviously dealing with the death of Cheryl in your other work at the moment. I assume that that’s to a large extent a case of this event looming so large that it naturally makes its way into your art. Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow is the most direct. What made you decide to publish this very personal material?
After Cheryl died I couldn’t really think about much else, and didn’t really want to, so everything else was put on hold. Much of the material that ended up in Don’t Go was stuff I’d set aside before her illness with the idea of doing some kind of book or zine or travelogue about she and I. So most of the material was there. When she died the material seemed like an obvious candidate to turn into a sort of memorial for friends and family. The original idea was just to print 20 or 30 copies out on my inkjet printer, but the book got longer, as did the list of people I wanted to have one, and when I printed out an early version to proof, I realized that my printer wasn’t really up to it and I couldn’t really afford to self-publish it in the form I wanted it to take. I asked Chris [Oliveros, DQ publisher] if he’d be willing or interested to put it out. He was, and so the book was published. So it really was intended for a very small, very specific audience. The fact that it made its way beyond that audience is perfectly fine with me, but wasn’t my main interest. As it happens it seems to have struck a chord. I’ve gotten more mail from and about that book than any other single book I’ve done.
