John T. Edge
Director
John T. Edge has served as director since the 1999 founding of the SFA. He holds an M.A. in Southern Studies from University of Mississippi and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College. A columnist for Garden & Gun and Oxford American, Edge is a winner of the M.F.K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award from the James Beard Foundation. He teaches in the low-residency Narrative Nonfiction MFA program at the University of Georgia’s Grady School of Journalism and serves as an editor in residence at Rivendell Writers’ Colony in Sewanee, TN. In the spring of 2017, Penguin published The Potlikker Papers, a food history of the modern South. He’s now on the road with Wright Thompson writing and producing True South for the SEC Network.
Melissa Booth Hall
Managing Director
Melissa Booth Hall is the SFA’s managing director. She holds a J.D. from Northern Kentucky University and a B.A. in English from Centre College. In 2003 she volunteered at the SFA’s Fall Symposium…13 1/2 gallons of pimento cheese and 1000 deviled eggs later, she was hooked. Since joining the SFA’s staff, Melissa has led field trips and Summer Symposia, organized countless Potlikker Film Festivals across the region (and beyond), and served as operations manager for many many Fall Symposiums. These days, her focus is SFA staff oversight and development, outreach, donor relations, and long-range planning.
Mary Beth Lasseter
Associate Director
Mary Beth Lasseter is the SFA’s associate director. She earned an M.A. in Southern Studies and an M.B.A. from the University of Mississippi, and holds a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame. She became involved with the SFA as a symposium volunteer in 2000, but now writes grants, oversees budgets, and assists with general planning and management. Mary Beth hails from South Georgia, but now calls Mississippi home.
Ava Lowrey
Pihakis Foodways Documentary Filmmaker
Ava Lowrey is the Pihakis Foodways Documentary Filmmaker. She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts , and in May of 2015 she completed her MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts at Duke University. Ava has been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, and CNN, and her short documentaries have screened at festivals across the country. A native of Alexander City, Alabama, Ava’s films often focus on her Southern roots, sharing untold stories centered in the South.
Sara Camp Milam
Managing Editor
Sara Camp Milam is the SFA’s managing editor. She has a B.A. in Spanish from Princeton University and an M.A. in folklore from UNC-Chapel Hill. She began volunteering for the SFA in 2009 and joined the staff full time in 2012. Before finding her way to SFA World Headquarters, Sara Camp was a middle school Spanish teacher and an associate editor at The Oxford American magazine.
Claire Moss
Development Officer
Claire Moss is SFA’s development officer and is charged with annual giving campaigns and individual gifts. Claire holds a BS in social work from the University of Mississippi and a master’s in social work from Louisiana State University. Prior to joining SFA’s world headquarters, she spent the majority of her career in the nonprofit sector in both executive and development roles. She moved to Oxford with her family in the summer of 2017.
Annemarie Anderson
Oral Historian
Annemarie Anderson is SFA’s oral historian. She received a master’s degree in oral history from the University of Florida in 2017, as the first graduate of that program. She also earned her bachelor’s degrees in English and history from UF.
Afton Thomas
Project Coordinator
Afton Thomas is the SFA’s project coordinator. She earned an M.A. in Theatre from Sacramento State University and holds a B.A. in Theatre from the University of Missouri. She and her family moved to Oxford in 2012 and have fallen in love with the community’s charm and family-centered feel. Before joining the SFA, Afton worked in human resources and for a non-profit local theater in Missouri. Moving to the South, she hoped for collard greens, great seafood, and decadent desserts. Mississippi has not let her down!
Brittney Andres-Rossi
Event Coordinator
Brittney Andres-Rossi is the SFA’s Event Coordinator. She earned her B.A. in Politics from Pomona College, focusing on food and agriculture policy. After a brief stint in investigative journalism, she followed her passion for hospitality and began working in restaurants full-time, finding her niche in private dining and event planning. Growing up, she spent summers on her grandparents’ farm outside Louisville, Kentucky, where she learned to love and cook Southern food. Her first Fall Symposium was in 2012, the year she officially moved to the South, and she’s been involved every year since.
Melany Robinson and Ashley Zink
Media Contact
Melany Robinson is the founder of Polished Pig Media. Ashley Zink is PPM’s executive director. Please feel free to contact Polished Pig with SFA-related press and media requests.
