Foster Dickson is a writer, editor, and teacher in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of three books: Kindling Not Yet Split (Court Street Press, 2002), I Just Make People Up: Ramblings with Clark Walker (NewSouth Books, 2009), and The Life and Poetry of John Beecher (Edwin Mellen Press, 2009), and the general editor of Treasuring Alabama's Black Belt (AUM/AHF, 2009).

Biography

Foster Dickson is a 36-year-old life-long resident of Montgomery, Alabama. Born in 1974, Foster attended public school at Floyd Elementary for grades 1-4 and later private school at Saint James School for grades 5-12. He played football for Saint James in seventh and eighth grades, then got involved in theater when he worked on the school's 1988 production of "Once Upon A Mattress." Following his older brother into theater work, he also was involved in productions of "Ballad of the Sad Cafe" at Theater AUM, of "Mame" at the now-gone Montgomery Little Theater, and of "Titus Andronicus" at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, all in 1989. In 1990, Foster began attending the Carver Creative and Performing Arts Center (CCPAC) in the Technical Theater component. He graduated from Saint James and CCPAC in 1992, with a resume of backstage credits that also included work at the Faulkner University Dinner Theater and the Davis Theater. (To see a list of Foster's theater credits, click here.)

Though he began college in 1992 as a theater major at Huntingdon College, Foster transferred in 1993 to Auburn University at Montgomery to study English and graduated with a BA in English (with a minor in Theater) in 1996. During and after college, Foster worked a variety of jobs such as veterinary assistant, inventory clerk, waiter, bartender, restaurant manager, cook, technical support rep for a technology company, and landscaper.

Foster's publishing experience began at NewSouth Books in 2001. He began as the production/operations manager, coordinating the office's business needs, running the in-house press and bookbindery, and fulfilling orders for distribution. However, NewSouth Books is small and versatile house, and some of his other tasks extended into sales and marketing, layout and design, and editorial. While working there, Foster manufactured and shipped out thousands of books, acquired singer-songwriter-poet Tom House's poetry collection, The World According To Whiskey; assisted Randall Williams in editing Weren't No Good Times, a book of Alabama slave narratives; and also worked on research and development for the Selma-to-Montgomery National Historic Trail. He also represented NewSouth Books at the Lost State Writers Conference in Tennessee, and at the Gulf Coast Creative Writers and Teachers Conference and the Eugene Walter Literary Festival both in Alabama.

It was during this period, from 2001-2003, that Foster also wrote book reviews for Montgomery's now-defunct alternative newspaper King Kudzu and for Foreword Reviews; published a short-lived literary magazine called honeydu about the eclectic modern South, and published a chapbook of his poems entitled Kindling Not Yet Split that received positive notices in First Draft and Big Muddy.

Foster left NewSouth Books in the fall of 2003 to teach creative writing at Booker T. Washington Magnet High School. Since arriving there, he revamped the literary magazine into the award-winning Graphophobia and created the "poetry for people" poster series. In 2004-2005, he received a Teaching Tolerance grant from the Southern Poverty Law Center and a Gannett Foundation grant for the Taking the Time project; he edited the subsequent student-written book and was also on the organizing committee of the Montgomery Children's Walk. In 2005-2006, he arranged a year-long project to have his creative writing students to teach writing lessons to children after-school, and he founded BTW's National English Honor Society chapter and the school's Film Club. In 2006-2007, Foster received a second Teaching Tolerance grant and led his students through writing Our Hope; he was also named Secondary Teacher of the Year twice, by the Montgomery County Board of Education and by the Montgomery County Council of PTAs. In 2007-2008, he started Writing Our Hope, and arranged a field trip for his students to Washington DC to collaborate with the creative writing department at George Mason University and to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival. In 2008-2009, Foster received a second Gannett Foundation grant and created Newsprung, an arts-focused online student journalism project, and was also awarded an Arts Teacher Fellowship from the Surdna Foundation for the following school year. In 2009-2010, Foster was named Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the Year by the Alabama PTA. Beginning in 2010-2011, Foster has also begun teaching 12th grade English.

During his years of teaching at BTW, Foster completed his teaching certificate work at Alabama State University in 2005 and also completed a Master of Liberal Arts degree at Auburn University at Montgomery in 2008.

Foster remains an active writer and editor. In additon to his book-length publications, his articles or reviews have appeared in: