after 18 years at the university of sussex, you walked away from your academic post.wonder, having had a few months to reflect on it, whether you are still sure you did the right thing. yes, i'm still sure i did the right thing, because the situation was pretty intolerable for me. at the time, there was this big campaign against me, by who knows how many students, but, at one point, there was over 100 on campus demonstrating against me during a university open day. they were letting off flares, they were writing graffiti, there was posters everywhere with my name on them. some pretty vile abuse. it was intense and very unpleasant, and, you know, not an environment i could do the things i want to do when i teach and research and live a normal life, so it was impossible for me to carry on there. and the union that was supposed to represent lecturers came out basically in favour of the protesters, which meant that some of my colleagues agreed with what was happening to me and that's also pretty difficult to put up with. so i decided to leave. it was your decision. i mean

of you know, sussex. so really looking forward to that. excellent. i don't think i've ever read anything from ortega university press so. now's my chance. does anyone either any of you three or anyone in the chat have final questions or comments to end on? there was a question for me from john. oh and john was asking sort of about you know, how i connected with west virginia university press and i think this is where the where you know presses that are regional it matters because before my manuscript was completed my agent met with their kristoff, who is the head of the press and so she kind of teased my collection to him at that time and that's what sparked his initial interest and i think the other part of john's question was, you know was their proposal and so forth. yes, so i am representative by an agent my i did not have a completed manuscript to submit. i submitted a partial manuscript and my deal with west virginia university press was based on that partial manuscript, and i think the other part of john's question was did i have a background in short fiction? and again, this is university presses taking a chance. my previous book