School of Arts & Letters

Zardosht Afshari is an Iranian filmmaker whose short films have been screened internationally at film festivals in the U.S., Iran, Poland, Croatia, India, and Italy. Professor Afshari has an MA in dramatic literature from the University of Tehran in Iran. In 2019, he moved to the United States and got his MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University in Philadelphia, PA where he was a TA, adjunct professor, and instructor of records for film and media courses. Some of his favorite filmmakers include Asghar Farhadi and Richard Linklater.

He is a recipient of the 2023 Philadelphia Filmmaker Lab fellowship. His short film, An Endoscopy, premiered at the BlackStar Film Festival – The Academy Awards® Qualifying festival for Shorts – in August 2023 with the opportunity for distribution on the Xfinity channel.

Professor Afshari's courses include Introduction to Media Production, Fiction Film Production, and Perspectives on Society and Film.

Professor Davidson earned his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi in 2004. His debut novel, In the Valley of the Sun, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. His follow up, The Boatman’s Daughter, was named one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year and appeared on numerous best-of lists, including Library Journal’s Best Horror the Year and the New York Public Library’s Best Books for Adults in 2020. His most recent novel, The Hollow Kind, was listed among Esquire’s Best Horror of 2022 and was featured as a Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year. His short fiction has been published widely in magazines and anthologies.

Dr. Hali Sofala-Jones is a Samoan American writer and teacher. She holds degrees from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (PhD) and the University of Wisconsin, Madison (MFA). Her 2019 debut poetry collection , Afakasi | Half-Caste, was published by Sundress Publications and was heralded by the “Chicago Review of Books” as one of the “10 Great Poetry Collections You May Have Missed” in 2019. Her poem “Fractured” was featured in the “Poem of the Day” series by the Academy of American Poets on September 6, 2019. Her work has been published in  The Missouri Review, Blue Mesa Review, CALYX, Fugue and elsewhere. 

Dr. Kelly Whiddon is a poet whose book, The House Began to Pitch, received the Adrienne Bond Poetry Award.  Her work has appeared in the anthologies Writing on Napkins at the Sunshine Club and The Southern Poetry Anthology: Volume V: Georgia, as well as the literary magazines Cimmaron Review, Crab Orchard Review, Poetry International, Meridian, and The Southern Poetry Review.  

Professor Young's fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Palo Alto Review, Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature, The Adirondack Review, and Turnstyle: The SABR Journal of the Baseball Arts. He grew up in Oklahoma and Mississippi, earned an M.F.A. in English from the University of Mississippi, and has taught at MGA since 2005.