![\"The](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/selfpublished\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/fizgig.jpg?resize=314%2C500\" "\\"The")
Author<\/h2>\nJill Cox Vogt<\/p>\n
Originally from the mountains of Johnson City, Tennessee, I have published poetry in literary journals and small presses, including Appalachian Heritage, and taken top honors in national poetry and short story competitions. I have also published articles about the performing arts and written grant applications to fund the arts, as well as a broad array of programs offered by a community action agency. While I never set out to live in various places throughout the United States, from Florida to Montana and several places in between, nor planned for my joke of trying to live in every state ending with the letter \u201ca\u201d actually coming true, I\u2019ve chalked it up to the \u201cgypsy in my soul.\u201d Nor did I plan to work at a university, a newspaper, a matchmaking service, a music company, that community action agency, a major festival (now that was solid fun!), a printing company, among other places (honestly, sheesh).<\/p>\n
I have a fabulous son, Colby, and five (yes, five) fabulous stepchildren. My mother lives in Johnson City, Tennessee, my sister lives in Nashville with her family, and my big brother lives in heaven with my father and God. Now, I get up at 5:30 each morning, which no one should have to do unless milking is involved, and proofread medical forms in a cubicle all day.<\/p>\n
All of my adventures were worth it, but the gypsy has landed in Louisiana where I live with my husband and dog and books, and don\u2019t say, \u201cI\u2019m freezing\u201d nearly as often as before.<\/p>\n
Poet Daisy Young needs to fall out of love with her dead fianc\u00e9. Nothing will bring him back to life, and holing up in their condo with boxes of chocolate-covered cherries she calls servings of fruit hasn\u2019t moved her forward. No amount of kindness or casseroles baked with chicken and good intentions has eased her gloom. It\u2019s time to get out of Nashville.<\/p>\n
With hastily packed suitcases and Milky Way Bars, she hits the highway to anywhere and runs out of gas in East Tennessee\u2019s mountains, as good a reason as any to stay there. Seeking inspiration for a poem, any poem, she meets,instead, Luke Strann, a carpenter with a secret past.<\/p>\n
The last thing she\u2019s looking for is love, and certainly not with Luke, who bears little similarity to her fianc\u00e9. Add to that Luke\u2019s bond with another woman that Daisy can\u2019t fathom, and her problem of perfecting a walking, broken heart for months on end. Still, the ways in which they\u2019re synchronized \u2013 writing poetry, hiking forests, and learning twenty-dollar words \u2013 transform their friendship into a \u201cno promises, no demands\u201d fling. But the more fun she has with Luke, the more frustrated she becomes with a relationship as difficult to grasp as water or wind, with what love is not. Tired of an uncertain future with Luke, she calls it quits. She weighs two choices: run to hope or head back to her family in Nashville.<\/p>\n
When her sister, Holly Lula, has a baby boy, Daisy makes haste to Nashville. Nestled in the love of her family and wafts of baby powder, she gets a call from Luke. Their friend\u2019s suffered critical injuries in a car wreck, and Daisy sees no choice but to return to the mountains. To home \u2013 but is it home?<\/p>\n
The accident ignites Luke\u2019s secret and gives Daisy one more choice, one she\u2019s never imagined.<\/p>\n
Set in a time when Tina Turner rocks the radio and phones are plugged into walls, THE FIZGIG chronicles the adventures, the defeats, and the triumphs of Daisy and Luke, with laughter and a host of quirky characters mixed within.<\/p>\n
A full moon\u2014Mom called it God\u2019s elevator button\u2014bleached the darkness out of midnight\u2019s sky. I had a good view of it, looking through the windshield, out of gas on a highway far from home. A second from screaming or crying or both, I made out a fluorescent sign high atop a pole, blinking \u201cKay\u2019s All Nighter Diner\u201d on and off, on and off. I pressed the emergency flashers, slung my purse over my shoulder, and slammed the car door.<\/p>\n
A Jeep and a cargo van sat in a pool of yellow light spilling from the diner\u2019s windows. I stepped across geraniums flanking the sidewalk that led to the entrance just as an old man emerged. His upper body tilted to the left, as though he carried a bucket of rocks. He pulled a toothpick from his mouth and nodded a greeting. I nodded back. The smell of bacon and onions drifted on July\u2019s warm air. I reached for the door papered with things to do in Hillston, Tennessee, events that stretched across the summer of 1984, but changed my mind about going in. I didn\u2019t need food.<\/p>\n
\u201cSir?\u201d I called. The old man twisted toward me. \u201cI\u2019m out of gas \u2013 and not for lack of trying to find some. Is there a station around here that I can walk to?<\/p>\n
\u201cTravel Mart is up yonder past the city limit sign, but you need gas, I got a can. It\u2019s enough to get you there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo kidding?\u201d I smiled, amazed at how he\u2019d come to the rescue. \u201cAre you the angel I\u2019ve been looking for?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoney, I\u2019m a simple flesh-and-blood man who believes in helping others.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m a very grateful woman. Of course, I\u2019ll pay you for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He waved my offer aside and fetched a plastic gas can from the Jeep. He held it in his left hand as we walked along the highway\u2019s shoulder. I was surprised he didn\u2019t use his right hand, since its weight might balance him. I wondered if he was in pain. Maybe he was an insomniac who\u2019d buttoned a plaid shirt up to his chin, tugged on wrinkled brown trousers and gone out for company, to get his mind off things.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can carry that.\u201d It was the least I could do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m old, Old Pete, folks call me, but I can tote it. I lean a little to the left because of my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour heart?\u201d What kind of heart problem turned a person into the Leaning Tower of Pisa?<\/p>\n
\u201cYep. Ever since my wife Alice passed on, it\u2019s been real heavy. There\u2019s sorrow in it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
An ache tightened my throat from the thought of him being too sad to stand up straight. I\u2019d never before heard of such a thing, but I understood. Boy, did I.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you learn to move on, lopsided or not.\u201d He pushed up his brown-framed bifocals. \u201cYou got a name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDaisy Young.\u201d Before I could put out my hand, a giggle burst loose. He\u2019d think I was nuts, although this was a time I wouldn\u2019t blame him. \u201cExcuse me. Our names struck me as . . . they seemed funny. Old Pete. Daisy Young.\u201d<\/p>\n