On this week’s episode, Dr David Tully and Deema Maghalseh of Middlesex University Dubai welcome award-winning filmmaker Razan Takash, who speaks not only about her new “Best of Fest” HollyShorts Film Festival champ Karayr Film (which she wrote and produced), but also gives us invaluable insight into how precisely a film makes it from first idea through execution, to a possible finish line at the Oscars.

Hint: it’s not always the best picture that wins Best Picture!

On an unusual episode in an unusual time at an unusual place, Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh of Middlesex University Dubai welcome novelist, filmmaker and writing coach Daniela Tully, who talks with us about her timely Dubai-set novel, her upcoming writer's retreat, and the challenges and rewards of writing in a troubled era.

On this episode of Crossroads, co-hosts Dr. David Tully and Deema Maghalseh are joined by author, lecturer, and social scientist Donya Saberi to discuss her memoir The Quiet Revolution. The book shares the story of an Iranian woman navigating heartbreak and societal pressures in Dubai, while offering reflections that go beyond personal experience. Blending memoir with elements of self-help, it turns lived pain into an empowering narrative. Together, they explore the craft of the “misery memoir” and ask when private suffering becomes something larger than the individual.