Foster Dickson is a writer, editor, and teacher in Montgomery, Alabama. He is the author of Closed Ranks and I Just Make People Up, and the editor of Nobody’s Home: Modern Southern Folklore.

Foster’s entry on Wickles – “wickedly delicious pickles” – has been published in the Encyclopedia of Alabama. This entry is his fourth for the state’s Encyclopedia, the first three were on poet John Beecher, writer Mary Ward Brown, and literary critic Andre Lytle.

Foster was one of the judges for his area’s Poetry Out Loud regional competition in late January 2026. The program is a recitation competition for high school students, who have the opportunity to advance from the school level to regional, state, and national levels of competition.

On January 15, 2026, Nobody’s Home: Modern Southern Folklore marked five years since the publication of the first batch of essays! Since that time, there have been dozens more essays published through annual Open Submission Periods. The next one begins on April 15 and ends on June 15, 2026. while reviews and interviews are considered year-round.

To learn more about the project, you can read Foster’s editor interview for Duotrope or browse the editor’s blog Groundwork, which features essays on religion in schools, school-choice vouchers, anti-CRT/DEI efforts, and horror films. The Editor’s Reading List also contains discussions of twenty-two books on Southern culture that were published between 1970 and 2021.

Teachers: all of the essays in the anthology are accompanied by lesson plans that include secondary ELA and social studies standards.

The first Dirty Boots column of 2026, titled “Excellent Teachers,” was published on January 3. The column, which Foster has written on and off since 2014, has the subtitle: “Irregular Attempts at Critical Thinking and Border Crossing.” It offers a Deep Southern, Generation X perspective on the culture, politics, and general milieu of the 21st century. Subjects have included books and reading, Southern politics and characters, education and teaching, language usage and word choices, music and concerts, being a sports dad, and much more. Recent columns from the latter months of 2025 are “Y’all come back now, y’hear?” and “Honoring bell hooks.”

Three of Foster’s book reviews have been published by the Alabama Writers Forum in 2025. Most recently, he reviewed Charles Ghigna’s new poetry collection Southern Bred. In July, his review of Out Loud Huntsville: A Year in Review 2024 was published, and that one was preceded by a review on More Poems for Hungry Minds by the Highland Avenue Poets in April. The earlier two are multi-author collections by writing groups based in Huntsville and Birmingham, respectively.

The last Southern Movies post of 2025 looks at the 1968 film adaptation of Carson McCullers’ 1940 novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Foster has been writing these posts, which contain both plot summary and analysis, since 2013. The series has discussed and dissected dozens of movies that are about the South, set in the South, and/or involve Southern characters. In addition to the posts about individual movies, there are also samplers on subject-focused groupings and “quick tributes” to lesser-known actors who were featured in Southern movies.

Other Southern Movies posts from the past year or so have discussed Harmony Korine’s bizarre 2009 film Trash Humpers, the 1996 family drama Bastard Out Of Carolina, the 1970 political drama WUSA, the 1977 hicksploitation film Bad Georgia Road, the 2002 political thriller The Badge, the 1983 racing-themed comedy Stroker Ace, the 1979 sex comedy Incoming Freshmen, and the 1985 GenX classic The Legend of Billie Jean.

Welcome to Eclectic offers long-form ruminations on the diverse modern South, education, sustainability, and social justice. Subjects have included Alabama’s 2023 Milligan case, the death of Kevin Phillips, Biblical teachings in public schools, and the 50th anniversary of The Americanization of Dixie.

Foster wrote those somewhat lengthier posts with regularity between 2012 and 2020, but published fewer between 2020 and 2023. (During those years, he was navigating the COVID pandemic and had four other projects going.) He returned to writing them in late 2023.

Recent

Since we’ve made another trip around the sun, the Deep Southern, Diversified, & Re-Imagined Recap of 2025 is available. Take a look at a summative listing of posts published over the last year, as well as some of the content on Nobody’s Home. Or read The Work (As 2025 Winds Down) from earlier in December.

Foster spent the first week in December at the Lowery Guest House at Pebble Hill, more formally known as the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities at Auburn University. After the Fall 2025 semester ended and grades were turned in, he shifted his attention to several smaller writing and editing projects. He is very grateful to the folks at Pebble Hill letting him hang around for a week!

On Thursday, November 4, Foster was a guest speaker for Dr. Madison Clark’s historical research course at Concordia College. The session was handled over Zoom, since Concordia is in Moorhead, Minnesota and Foster is in Montgomery, Alabama.

Two of Foster’s books are available at Montgomery’s Southern Art & Makers Collective. The store is located on Madison Avenue across from Patterson Field. Closed Ranks and I Just Make People Up, both of which are on local subjects, are on the shelves among works by dozens of other local artists, craftspeople, and writers. The collective’s store is open Wednesday through Saturday from 12:00 noon until 5:00 PM.

Foster attended the Village Writing Project’s Summer Institute in June 2025. The Village Writing Project is Auburn University’s affiliate of the National Writing Project. The Institute is a “professional development experience focused on providing K-12 teachers, administrators, and others with opportunities to collaborate, reflect, write, and grow together [and] a space to learn from and with other educators and to develop the knowledge, the network, and the agency to teach beyond the standards, to engage and explore writing as individuals, and to gain insight into issues of social justice and equity that face our classrooms and communities today.”

Foster shifted things around in his social media accounts and other online platforms in 2025. Welcome to Eclectic has been made available on Medium, and the Pragmatic Idealism graphics are now on Pinterest. On the other side of the equation, the unused page for level:deepsouth and author page titled Foster Dickson were both deleted from Facebook in February 2025. Most recently, the Twitter account for Nobody’s Home was deactivated in June 2025. (His personal Twitter and LinkedIn accounts have been closed for some time now.)

For those who might like to reach out via the messaging apps on social media platforms, please use the Contact form here to send an email instead. And for those who followed the Facebook author page and are still interested in receiving updates and blog posts, please Subscribe using the form on the right side of any page.

On Saturday, May 10, 2025, Foster was one of four presenting writers at the Author’s Expo-sium in Prattville, Alabama. The event, which was held at the Doster Community Center, featured author talks and vendors. It was hosted by pastor and author Dr. Wanda Berry.

Foster’s poem “They Come, Growling” was published in the October 2024 issue of Boudin, a literary magazine housed at McNeese State in Louisiana. The issue is a “Creature Feature” and focuses on monsters and related subjects.

*The photograph that appears in the header of the website was taken on US Highway 80 between Newbern and Selma. © Foster Dickson, 2010