Each week, the Shreveport-Bossier Journal’s Tony Taglavore takes to lunch a local person – someone who is well-known, successful, and/or influential, and asks, “What’s Your Story?”

By TONY TAGLAVORE, Journal Services

 She knew little to nothing about writing a book. But having found some free time, she sat down and pounded the keyboard. It was a self-taught effort she admits “was not very good.”

But the wife and mother enjoyed the work, and became more serious about her second try. When finished, she went to Kinko’s and had the book printed. Even got it “bound with a little spiral thing.” She reached out to agents and was told 85 times, “Not interested.” On the 86^th try, she found one willing to take a chance on a newbie.

Then came a rainy autumn afternoon in 2011. There she sat in the school carpool line, waiting to pick up her two oldest sons, while the youngest was sleeping in the back seat. The kinda sorta writer’s phone rang. Her agent was calling.

“We sold the book to Disney Hyperion! A two-book deal!”

Words the then 38-year-old will never forget, regardless of where she heard them.

“I remember sitting there thinking, ‘This is probably one of the best moments (in my life) and I’m in this car, in this carpool line. You just want to turn around and say, ‘Do you believe this?’ and there’s nobody there (except a sleeping baby). It was all very exciting.”

As she speaks, tears well up in her eyes.

“It was just such a random place to get some of your best news.”

Shreveport’s Ashley Elston, now 51 years old and the author of seven books – including a New York Times Bestseller – told me that story, and her story, during lunch at a place she chose, Frank’s Pizza Napoletana. Ashley had a Strawberry salad and unsweet tea with Splenda. I enjoyed half of a La Mista salad, half a Vegetariana pizette, and a water with lemon.

“That day was all euphoric,” Ashley remembers. “My husband came home and said, ‘Let’s cook a steak! Let’s have a drink!’ My friends were just so excited for me.”

It’s been an unexpected rise to fame for the LSUS General Studies major, whose grades weren’t quite good enough to get into nursing school. All of her books have been published.

“I was not a writer. I was not one of those who wrote short stories. I did not keep a journal. I loved to read. I read all the time. My mother was a big reader. I started with the Nancy Drew books and went up from there.”

Along the way, Ashley, at her father’s insistence, took piano lessons.

“I hated it at the time because it was a lot of practice. As soon as (he) said I could quit, I quit. Now, I’m kind of mad I quit because I would sure love to be able to play the piano.”

It was in high school that Ashley found an affinity for photography.

“I always had a camera. I was the girl who always had the little camera. I had the disc camera at one point. I loved pictures.”

In fact, Ashley turned her photographic talents into a 10-year career as a wedding photographer. A big part of her success came as the result of her and her husband’s (they met on a blind date on Valentine’s Day) decision to rent a small but expensive building behind the old Sue Peyton’s dress shop off Line Avenue, which was known for its bridal department.

“I thought I needed to put myself in the path of every bride who came out of that store.”

Ashley’s strategy worked.

“I got to be friends with the girls who were selling the dresses upstairs, and then they were referring their brides to me. That’s really what helped my business take off – the investment of the location.”

But having to choose between photographing a wedding and being at the hospital while her child had emergency surgery, – it really wasn’t a choice – brought an end to Ashely Elston Photography.

Ashley had noticed what looked like a pimple on the chin of her two-month-old. But when both woke up on a Saturday morning, Ashley saw that pimple had become “big and red and hard. It was going all down his neck. I freaked out.”

The pediatrician said Ashley’s son had a staph infection. “It’s abscessed,” she was told. “Let me call (what was then Sutton’s Children Hospital) and see if they have a bed.”

“For what?” Ashley asked.

“He’s going to have surgery to remove that.”

“I was like, ‘Ok, but I have a wedding at one (o’clock).’”

The pediatrician replied, “He will probably be in surgery at one.”

“I was crying. You can’t call your bride and say, ‘Today’s not a good day for me. What does next Saturday look like?’”

Ashley’s cousin, and her cousin’s husband, were also wedding photographers. They drove from Monroe and worked the wedding. But Ashley’s mind was made up.

“(My son) came out of surgery. He had all these drain tubes. He was so little. I looked at my husband and said, ‘I will never be in that situation again, where I have to think about do I go to work, or do I take care of my baby.’”

But as time passed, Ashely started itching to do something.

“I think I missed the creative outlet from the photography.”

So, while her baby was sleeping, and after the house had been cleaned, Ashley began to “play around” with writing. Her first try effort wasn’t much more than an exercise. But her second try, which Ashley considers her first real book, was much better. Disney Hyperion bought it less than three weeks after the book was sent to potential publishers. That’s almost unheard of, especially for a beginning author.

“I didn’t realize just how many people were trying to do this, and didn’t succeed, until I started talking to other writers, and hearing how many years they had tried.”

Earlier this year, Ashely’s most recent book, First Lie Wins, debuted at #5 on the New York Times’ best- seller list.

“It’s going to be the first line of my obituary. New York Times best-selling author Ashley Elston has passed away. It’s the thing that attaches to your name forever.”

In addition to a publisher, 20th Television Studios bought the rights to make the book into a movie. And while she says she isn’t materialistic, Ashley recently treated herself to a trio of small but significant items.

On her right hand she wears three rings – stackable bands. The one with green emeralds is for when First Lie Wins was chosen by Reese Witherspoon as her Book of the Month. (A big deal in the book world.) The ring with blue sapphires is for when First Lie Wins hit the NYT best-seller list. The third ring, with diamonds, is for First Lie Wins selling more than one million copies.

“They were literally for myself to say ‘Girl, look what you did!’”

Knowing Ashley was busy putting the finishing touches on her eighth book due out in January 2026, I asked my final question. As always, what is it about her life story that might inspire someone else?

“It’s okay not to do just one thing. It’s okay to change your mind and do something completely different. I didn’t have to do photography for 40 years. I did it for 10 years, then I tried something else . . . . I don’t think it’s too late to do anything. I was 50 before having my biggest success. I don’t need to be 25 to have that success. It’s still great at 50. There’s time. Just keep working. Keep going forward.”

Do that, and the first line of your obituary might begin by recognizing your talents.

Do you know someone with a story? Email SBJTonyT@gmail.com.

The Journal’s weekly “What’s Your Story?” series is sponsored by Morris & Dewett Injury Lawyers.

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