Tag: Emily Girard
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Spring Roses in Winter
Some stories refuse to stay cut. This one belongs to Maybell, the schoolteacher with the emerald eyes and the long memory. Her story first appeared in an early draft of A Hundred Ways to Say I Love You. Though it slipped from the final pages, it’s still part of Radiant’s heart. AGNES LOVED MAYBELL’S stories. But her…
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To Ezra, from Jojo.
This is the first in a new series called Letters from Radiant—dispatches from the world of my novels, written by the characters who still have something left to say. You can find the full collection here. All photos © Emily Bump Girard, taken in the Shenandoah Valley
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Morning in the Valley
I STOPPED IN the gas station for a soda. The clerk asked me if I was just getting off work, dressed in scrubs with my name badge hanging from my lab coat lapel. I wasn’t. It was 8:30 PM, and I was heading in for my seventh night shift in a row. “Oh, man. Sorry,”…
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Building Radiant: Three Books, Three Logos, One Small Town
I’ve just finished building something I’m really proud of: individual pages for all three of my Radiant novels. For the past two years, I’ve been writing about Radiant, Virginia—a fictional Appalachian town where recovery is hard-won, violence is never simple, and grace arrives in unexpected forms. What started as one novel has become three (and…
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Nice to meet you!
I only have four subscribers (hi, Mom—and the rest of you too), but it felt like time for a reintroduction. Here’s a refreshed version of my bio, updated with where I am these days—on the page, in the hospital, and somewhere in between. EMILY BUMP GIRARD writes emotionally layered, character-driven fiction set in the fictional Appalachian…
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Why Radiant? Why not?
People don’t plan trips to Radiant. It doesn’t even earn a bold font on a map of Virginia—if it’s marked at all. It’s the kind of place Google Maps skips over—not quite big enough to matter, not quite small enough to disappear. But folks find their way to it, detouring off the interstate to get…
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Stories that Heal
I’ve spent years caring for patients in small-town Virginia, where every cough, fever, and tear has its own story. Sometimes, the stories I remember most aren’t about dramatic diagnoses or heroic saves—they’re about a child with a sore throat and a worried parent by her side. In the exam room, medicine and humanity meet in…
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Fortunate Fortune: The pleasure of what we enjoy is lost by wanting more.
Sometimes, all it takes is a traffic jam—or a stray fortune cookie—to remind us to slow down and really see what’s right in front of us. I FIND the fortune by accident, stuck to the back deck in a patch of old rain. Some stray cat must have dragged it out of the trash, or…
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From the Archives: Them’s fightin’ words. Now what did you say again?
Written in 2012, when my oldest daughter Hannah was a teenager and our home was full of both drama and laughter. The moment felt enormous then—now it’s a tender memory, one of many that shaped us both. We survived. We became friends. This is a snapshot of that journey, from a time when the nest…
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Short Story: Grandpa’s Magic Fishing Hole
Do you have a place in the world that only opens for you? A memory shaped by someone you loved? Sometimes, the world feels more magical if you walk slow, carry the sticks, and believe in doorways. A short story about magic, patience, and the doorways we find with the people we love most. ERNIE…