On Sale $25.00 in Hardback
Una Voce – want to see what other folks think:
“Bravo! Dwalia South’s essays are delightful, touching and irreverent. Whether she’s writing about the comic (‘lowly hospital gowns’) or the dread (the impending death of a mate) or comparing sexual dysfunction to a cranky car, Dr. South is hitting on all cylinders.” — Curtis Wilkie, author of The Fall of the House of Zeus
“The poetry and prose of Dwalia South M.D. speak not only to those of her profession, but to everyone who encounters her work. She was inspired to become a physician by the one known as ‘a good doctor’ in Tippah County, Dr. Jessie Mauney (1893- 1985). She has been inspired to be a writer by many authors and most of all by the Creator who blessed her with a talent for expressing herself through the written word. Those of us who have read Dwalia’s words and also know her have been twice blessed.” —Tommy Covington, William Faulkner scholar and Magnolia Gazette Contributing Editor
This is the story of a life, told in snatches of bright vision, like looking through a family photo album. Told by a wonderful author who has framed her own life in the stories she’s shared over the years. —Russell Scott Anderson M.D. Author of Time Donors Wanted
Mississippi Medical News
At the embryonic Una Voce meeting in 2004, the original assignment was given as “a monthly essay for the Journal that would be of wide appeal to Magnolia State physicians of every stripe – and perhaps, as well, that doctor’s spouse who would doubtless find it on the home coffee table or bedside stand and read it hungrily for insights into the troubled minds of modern day healers.”
Luke Lampton, editor of the Journal, who has called South the “best physician-writer in Mississippi,” was present at the birth of Una Voce as “neither father or mother, rather … a frightened midwife … doing little more than allowing a natural process to occur, trying my best just to stay out of the way and not screw things up.”
Even though the book was fairly organized and mostly written, the most difficult part of completing the book came from “a scarcity of time,” explained South, “working full-time and enduring the slings and arrows of life that continued to fly at me after my cancer ordeal. My husband developed lung cancer and died the following year – a double whammy. As you can imagine, that threw a kink in things. If it weren’t for Dr. Scott Anderson and Dr. Lampton, it would never have happened.”
Among the highlights: “Too Many Roosters,” “The Bless Cloth,” “Old Dan Tucker Syndrome,” “Resolutions: In One Year and Out the Other,” “Mississippi Turning,” and “Chief Complaints,” Parts 1 and 2.
“The most cathartic thing was the chapter called ‘Meditations from Room 324’ about my experiences with my husband as he neared death,” said South. “But I still laugh out loud when I read the ‘Chief Complaints’ chapters … things that my patients have told me that cause me to laugh to this day.”
Mississippian Curtis Wilkie, author of The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America’s Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, the 2010 book about “Dickie” Scruggs, called South’s essays “delightful, touching and irreverent.”
“Whether she’s writing about the comic (‘lowly hospital gowns’) or the dread (the impending death of a mate), or comparing sexual dysfunction to a cranky car, Dr. South is hitting on all cylinders,” he said.
The daughter of a plumber and the first in her family to attend college, South refers to herself as simply “a hillbilly girl.” Remarried less than a year to musician Roger Yancey, they reside at the Green Hills family farm in rural Tippah County with her two sons, Jesse and Jack. She maintains an active clinical practice while also serving in various leadership roles, and cheering other physician-writers as their works are published. (Anderson is working on a new literary project and recently published The Uncommon Thread).
Una Voce, published in 2011 by China Grove Press, has nearly sold out the first hardcover edition. Publishing a paperback version with additional material is being considered, said South. The book is available via ChinaGrovePress.com.