Courtesy of the author
Ashley Elston
After more than a decade of success writing young adult novels, Shreveport author Ashley Elston never expected her first foray into adult fiction to be her big break. A pandemic project, her 2024 novel First Lie Wins began with Elston’s fantasies of a tense dinner party, and emerged as a twisty, fast-paced psychological thriller that quickly rose to the top spot on The New York Times bestseller list—even catching the attention of actress, producer, and book club maven, Reese Witherspoon.
For our 2025 Film & Literature issue, editor Jordan LaHaye Fontenot sat down with Elston to discuss how her former career as a photographer continues to impact her work, the method behind her intricate plots, the realities of massive literary success, and what we can expect from her forthcoming novel, Anatomy of an Alibi.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You’ve said in other interviews that your career as an author began “while your baby was napping.” What was it that propelled you, at that point in your life, to start writing?
So, I had been a wedding photographer for ten years, but as my older boys started to get into school ages, they were doing things on weekends I didn’t particularly want to miss—their sports, birthday parties. And then we had this new baby. So, I thought I’d take a break, then come back to it when the kids were older. But I missed that creative outlet.
I've always been a big reader. Always. Oh, I love to read. But I never really thought I would be a writer. I didn't know how you became a writer. And I don't know, I had an idea, and I said, ‘well, let me just write it down.’ And he’d nap, and I'd kind of write. It was not a book that's ever been published. It's not very good. I call it my 'practice book,' because I kind of taught myself how to write off of that book.
But I enjoyed the process. And so, once I finished that, I felt like a door opened—like, I don't know, maybe I could write another book, maybe a better one.
"I think sometimes the South really gets the shorter end of the stick when people think about how we are here. And it was really important to me to show that there could be sophisticated crimes, sophisticated things, being done in a part of the country most people don’t consider sophisticated." —Ashley Elston
How does a book concept begin for you?
Because of my photography background, I am very visual, and I do sort of see my scenes. I build them in my mind before I start writing them, thinking about, like, how I would frame a photograph. What does the room look like? What are the details that come into focus for me? And then I sort of grow from there.
So, I had this scene in my head of this girl standing at a sink in kind of a dilapidated looking bathroom, like a single bare bulb over the sink. And she's kind of sad. So why is she sad? And then, I think, let me just write that scene. So, that was actually the opening scene of my first young adult novel that was published.
What is your process like, of constructing and plotting a novel from start to finish?
For my first drafts, I'm usually sort of along for the ride as we discover what's happening. Now, you can only do that for a certain amount of time before you have to stop and ask, “Okay, what's the plot?” But I don't go in knowing. I have maybe some ideas or some themes I'd like to really play on. But really, I kind of wing that on the first draft. And that’s like a skeleton, the bones. Like, where are we starting? Where are we trying to finish? How does it all connect? Then, I have to go back and add the muscle, the organs. Where’s the heart of the story? What’s going to get the heart racing, the heart pumping? Where are the brains of the story, the clever twists? And then I go back through again and put the skin on it, make it look good, dress her up. What’s her hair color? It’s layering, and every layer sort of makes it better, more real, and when you’re done, you have a real finished thing, like a person.
So, how does it feel when you finally get to that point? Where you feel like you have a complete ‘person’ of a book?
It’s hard sometimes to know that you’re there, because you’re always like, “Is there more I can do?” But it’s a feeling, really, more than anything. At some point you have to be like, you know what? This is it; it’s done. It’s really a gut thing.
It’s really interesting to learn that you are more of a ‘pantser’ than a ‘plotter,’ especially because First Lie Wins has so many twists and turns from a plot perspective.
Right? In that book especially, it was like that. I started writing First Lie Wins during that horrible March 2020 of lockdown. And everybody was home, and nobody wanted to be there. My peaceful day was gone. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do next. I had written four mystery thrillers at that point, and then two rom coms. So, I was like, “Am I going back to rom com?”
But I had that opening scene of the dinner party in my head. I could see the table, I could see those people sitting around that table. I started thinking about what those people would say, how catty they would be, and I knew it wasn’t young adult. It felt older. I decided I would just write the scene and go from there.
I didn’t know who Evie was yet, if she was good or bad. Was she an undercover cop? Was she a con artist? I just thought, well, we’re all locked at home, and nobody can do anything. What does it matter? I’ll just play with it.
And it became my little escape from just a really not great time in the world. I would lose myself in that book. It’s a pretty complicated plot, but it didn’t start that way. I would write it pretty straight, and then say, “Oh my gosh, there is so much here that I could play with.”
What was it like developing Evie?
Once I figured out who I wanted Evie to be—you know, she’s got her own moral line in the sand. It might not be where mine is, but it’s where she is. She’s not bad, but she’s not good either. And once I got to know her, I’d start thinking, “Well, she’s smarter than that. She could have done this, but she’s better than that.”
Louisiana is the primary setting of First Lie Wins. How important is place in your writing?
I think place plays a huge part. I treat setting like a character. I think that the way the South loves SEC football is important in First Lie Wins—the Kentucky Derby party, even those women at the dinner party in the beginning. Those are women from here. We know who they are. I like for setting to be like, it has to be here, or the story doesn’t work.
I also think sometimes the South really gets the shorter end of the stick when people think about how we are here. And it was really important to me to show that there could be sophisticated crimes, sophisticated things, being done in a part of the country most people don’t consider sophisticated.
"I rewrote and rewrote. Once I had the bones, I’d come back and tweak, twist things up. That’s where the magic really comes for me. I changed the ending seven times before it was all said and done." —Ashley Elston, on her book First Lie Wins
So, before First Lie Wins, you had already built a successful career as an author. But this book propelled you to the top of The New York Times Bestseller List and was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick. What has that kind of meteoric rise to literary fame been like for you?
It was crazy, yeah. It was my seventh book; I had been doing it for ten years at that point. It was all very surprising. It happened the year I turned fifty, and I was like, “You know what, this is going to be great. I’m just going to enjoy it, because I might not ever get any of these opportunities again.” Publishing is so fickle. I told my publisher, “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” And I did, I mean, I traveled. I went everywhere, went on tour, went to every book festival that invited me. I was on the road. Two of my kids are out of the house now, there’s one in high school. I took full advantage of it.
And I’m glad it happened on my seventh book, ten years in. Because I think that if I was a brand new author, and this was my first book, and this happened to me, I don’t know how that would have set my expectations for everything else coming my way. The stars aligned for this one book, and that’s all I’m given. I do feel like I was able to stay pretty grounded in it, but I’m not gonna lie, it was amazing. Like really amazing. I’ve met some incredible people, and done some really, really cool things.
[Read another Q&A with a New York Times bestseller, Lauren Groff.]
What kind of advice would you give aspiring authors, especially living here in Louisiana?
I think you have to have your community. My agent told me early on that I needed critique partners and set me up with two of her other clients. And we are still very, very close to this day. They read everything I write as I’m writing it, and I do the same for them. My local friends could not be more supportive, but when I’m like “I don’t know where to put that body …” it’s easier to talk to other writers. Or when I get a terrible review, and need to vent to somebody about it, I’ve got someone who understands what that feels like.
I also make an effort to go and meet my agent and editor face-to-face in New York every year. I consider it an investment. I think a personal connection is super, super important—taking it beyond just emails.
And finally, a lot of people try to chase a trend when they’re writing, and you have to understand that when you have an idea for a book, it won’t hit the shelf for two years. The trend will be gone. Write what you want to write, what you enjoy reading. Don’t worry about who is going to love it. You have to love it, and it will show in the writing.
Last question: what can you tell us about your newest book, Anatomy of an Alibi?
This was probably the hardest book I’ve ever written. It took me the longest of all to decide when to step away from it. It’s set in St. Francisville and in Baton Rouge, as well as in a town I made up—which is very corrupt, so I didn’t want it to be a real place.
I’ve never had to write a book after such a successful book, and that played some mind tricks I was not prepared for. There was a lot of self-doubting. Writing is a weird thing, because you know, it’s you and your brain and your creativity and your imagination, and sometimes it turns on you. Like, “Is this good enough to follow up First Lie Wins?”
So, I was in my head a lot for the writing of this book. In the end, I’m very proud of it. I’m proud that I did it!
Learn more about Ashley Elston at ashleyelston.com, where you can order First Lie Wins and pre-order Anatomy of an Alibi, which comes out on January 20, 2026.
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