Season 2, Episode 6: Maida Owens, the "Louisiana Folklife Lady"

James and contributor Chris Turner-Neal sit down with Maida Owens to discuss the work of preserving Louisiana culture.

In this episode of DETOURS, James is joined by contributor Chris Turner-Neal for a conversation with Maida Owens, the director of the Louisiana Folklife Program—a position she has held for nearly forty years now. The three discuss the definition of “folklife” and its iterations in Louisiana, as well as some of Owens’s biggest projects, including the ten-year culmination of folktales collected through the Louisiana Storytelling Project. Owens emphasizes the importance of investing in and preserving cultural practices, especially from the perspective of the challenges Louisianans face today as threats to life in coastal communities increase. Through projects like the Bayou Culture Collaborative and its popular workshops dedicated to bringing together artists, tradition bearers, folklorists, and scientists—Owens is working to provide solutions and infrastructure for the future of Louisiana folklife.

Reading List

Here, find articles and other materials that we either mentioned in the episode, or that we think might enrich and/or further the conversations we had. 

Folkways of the Lost Lands: Maida Owens leads the way in preserving Louisiana culture in the age of the climate crisis

Read Chris Turner-Neal's original story from our September 2023 Fortieth Anniversary Issue. 

Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana

Maida Owens's book Swapping Stories: Folktales from Louisiana is the culmination of one of Owens's biggest undertakings, the Louisiana Storytelling Project. 

Baton Rouge Traditions: Conducted between 2013 and 2017, the Baton Rouge Folklife Survey revealed what Maida Owens knew in her heart: rather than lacking an identity, Baton Rouge is a "cultural microcosm" of Louisiana.

Here is Lucie Monk Carter's story from the October 2017 issue. 

Behind Closed Doors: What typifies Baton Rouge? In what traditions, landmarks, material culture, or geography does the city's identity lie?

For the February 2014 issue, Nalini Ragaven spoke with Maida Owens about the cultural traditions of Louisiana's capital city. 

Meet 2023's Louisiana Tradition Bearers: During Louisiana Folklife Month, the LFC and LFS will honor the folks carrying local heritage into the future

Read mini-bios of the 2023 Louisiana Tradition Bearers, including the Breaux Bridge women Owens mentions in the podcast who make crawfish bisque. By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot for the October 2023 issue.

Want to get involved in Louisiana Folklife?

Consider joining the society for just $25/year, attending the next "Sense of Place—and Loss" or "Passing it On" Workshop, or other Bayou Culture Collaborative events. Learn more at louisianafolklife.org and louisianafolklore.org.

For further folklife research:

The Folklife Program Projects and research materials—including the records from the Louisiana Folklife Recording Series and The Creole State: An Exhibition of Louisiana Folklife originally presented at the 1984 World's Fair—are available to the public at LSU's Hill Memorial Library. louisianafolklife.org/LFP/program_archives.

Meet Your Co-Hosts 

James Fox-Smith is the Publisher of Country Roads magazine, and has been on the masthead since 1995 when he followed a Louisiana girl (Country Roads' Associate Publisher Ashley Fox-Smith) to her hometown of St. Francisville to take over her mother's magazine. The past two decades have made this Aussie into a true Louisianan, as passionate and knowledgable about the intricacies of this region's culture as any bayou-born Cajun. Overseeing the company for much of its forty-year history, he's worn almost every hat the magazine has to offer, from sales to editorial to marketing—and writes a monthly publisher's column, titled "Reflections" which you can peruse, here. You also might catch him hosting the Louisiana Public Broadcasting's weekly series Art Rocks!—which spotlights artists, performance, culture, literature, history and the impact of art in our world.

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot is the Managing Editor of Country Roads magazine, and has been a part of the editorial team since 2018. Born and raised in the heart of Acadiana, she came to Country Roads with a passion for Louisiana storytelling. She holds a degree in English from Louisiana State University, where she received the 2018 Sarah Sue Goldsmith Award for Nonfiction. In addition to her work at Country Roads, she has published stories in regional and international publications including inRegister, Atlas Obscura, and the Oxford American. Her first book Home of the Happy: A murder on the Cajun Prairie, will be  published by Mariner Books in 2025.  

Alexandra Kennon is the Arts & Entertainment Editor at Country Roads since 2020, and has been writing and photographing stories about Southern culture, cuisine, history, and art for the magazine since 2016. She holds degrees in Journalism and Theatre Arts from Loyola University New Orleans, where she was Managing Editor of Pacemaker-winning university newspaper The Maroon, and could typically be found flitting between the newsroom and black box theatre. She has acted in productions ranging from independent festival films to Tennessee Williams world-premiere stage productions, and previously led historical, culinary, and cultural tours of New Orleans. Her book Classic Restaurants of New Orleans, published by Arcadia/The History Press with a foreword by Walter Isaacson, is available most places one finds books.