Microchip & A Love Story Told through the History of Cinema

Clayton Grant is a graduating English major with minors in Film Studies and in Writing and Linguistics. He enjoys reading of all kinds (comic books especially), long walks with his dog (Adrian), and (of course) writing. Clayton aspires to be a Hemingway scholar and a librarian after graduating. He is a frequent reader at Burning Swamp and at Chandler Hollow. You can find his work in Miscellany Magazineor just by asking him to read what he’s working on. He occasionally tweets as @ClaytonGrant19. So, I want to take a minute to explain some of the inspiration behind my two pieces. \u27Microchip\u27 is a story about my mental health diagnosis of Schizophrenia and sort of how I have learned to cope with it. \u27A Love Story Told Through a History of Cinema (Mostly Star Wars)\u27 is a story about my biggest failed relationship. I wanted to tell that story as sort of my final goodbye to the other person. It was very important to me that it didn’t seem like everything was her fault, because it wasn’t. I have my share of blame. I also want to thank just all of my family and friends who support me throughout my entire writing process. They are there for every shitty draft and they are there to support me at every reading. I don’t want to start naming names because this will either go on forever or I’ll accidentally leave someone out, so I’ll just say thank you to my professors: Olson, Sexton, and Drevlow. Olson, I probably wouldn’t be writing as prolifically as I do now if it weren’t for you. Sexton, I’ve never had your class, but you gave me the biggest compliment that I have ever received as a writer and I will never forget it. Drevlow, I haven’t had your class either, but I remember sitting in your office, working on a very serious piece that was in a very shitty draft stage and you smiled at me, reminding me that my writing wasn’t absolute garbage like I sometimes feel it is. My biggest inspirations are Bud Smith and Ernest Hemingway. They both taught me that less is more and that you don’t need grand descriptions in order to be a successful writer. There is a quote from Hemingway that I would like to share, and then I’m done, I promise: “All you have to do is write one true sentence, the truest sentence you know” -Ernest Hemingway from A Moveable Feas