Ashlee Eastin Wilson is an artist, musician, author, French radio announcer and teacher from Ville Platte,Louisiana. She is an autodidact in Louisiana (Cajun/) French and is well known for her documentation of the folklore of Evangeline Parish and Prairie des Femmes in Saint Landry Parish, through her bilingual commonplace books.
Ashlee Wilson was raised in Ville Platte, Louisiana and graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in Secondary English Education. She taught English literature and French for over a decade in the Louisiana public school system, namely Beau Chêne High School. With grants procured by her French student’s work, she was able to furnish her classroom with sets of the Dictionary of Louisiana French as well as other cultural titles. An anglophone by birth, she became fluent in French by attending University Saint Anne in Nova Scotia. This began a solid base for Louisiana French, which she reclaimed through documentation both written and visual. Ashlee is a diarist and draws endless inspiration from hundreds of handmade seasonal journals and books that she creates.
As the granddaughter of the ‘lost generation' of Louisiana French speakers, she used her
environment to become not only fluent but also knowledgeable in the different dialects that exist across Louisiana society. Ashlee dedicated years to careful documentation of the radio program La Tasse de Café on 92.5 KVPI, transcribing stories, local folklore, word play and herbal remedies, as well as modern commercials and snippets of modern Louisiana French life. This work culminated with being hired by KVPI as the youngest female host to announce the news in French, the Tasse de Cafe Radio Program, and even hosting the world-famous Saturday morning French broadcast from Fred’s Lounge in Mamou. The written and recorded documentation from these years serves as the source for her current work in self-taught folklore. Additionally this work prepared her to act as the French announcer for “Bonjour, Louisiane” a morning French music and news program at KRVS in Lafayette, Louisiana. She replaced the long-time host Pete Bergeron who initiated the program and held the position for 40 years.
She served as the youngest member of the board of directors for the Council for the
Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) from (2009-2012) and as a francophone
ambassador for Louisiana to the Center des Francophonie des Ameriques in Montreal in 2010.
In 2012 she began the Prairie des Femmes blog that became an early online resource for
people craving authentic information about Louisiana. The blog began as daily documentation of the place known in French as Prairie des Femmes (Women’s Prairie) and research on the origin of this place name. The blog grew to include photography, memes, writing, French transcriptions, recordings, folklore, music, lessons, and more. It was one of the first websites to offer visual media in Louisiana French and incorporate local folklore and music lyrics into modern media for a younger audience wishing to learn. The Prairie des Femmes blog was popular with Louisiana expats missing home as well as local men and women wanting to reconnect with the beauty of Louisiana culture, but were unable because of the lack of resources, namely the decline of Louisiana French speakers over recent decades. Ashlee uses her knowledge of modern American culture and blends it organically with the archaic knowledge found in Louisiana French. She has served the community by providing bilingual announcements at the Lafayette Regional Airport, translating the Opelousas Travelers Guide to French, appearing on radio and podcasts, as well by hosting the monthly French table in Opelousas.
As a writer she has created hundreds of hand decorated journals in Louisiana French, as well as dozens of cultural zines. She has published as a guest columnist in local papers such as the Advertiser, Advocate, The Current, Les Bonnes Nouvelles, New Orleans Magazine and Acadiana Profile. Her work has been featured in 64 Parishes, Bitter Southerner, Country Roads Magazine and the New York Times. She published her first work ‘Ô Malheureuse’ on UL Press in 2019, a first of its kind collection of modern Louisiana women’s writings in French. The collection began on the PDF blog and was published by UL Press and released in time for the 2019 Festival Acadiens and Creole dedicated to the contributions of women in Louisiana music.
As a photographer, Ashlee has self published three books, The Plains of Mary, a photo book of Marian yard shrines, Prairie des Femmes: Portraits of a Place, a collection of surreal photographs from the countryside of Acadiana, and finally A Prairie des Femmes Field Guide, a collection of art and writing from the PDF blog. Her work has been featured in Louisiana Cultural Vistas, 64 Parishes, and she has shown her photographs with photographers Denny Culbert and Jo Vidrine. She had thirty of her photos shown as part of Frank Relle’s New Orleans in Photographs exhibit in Moscow in 2014. Her work has also been recognized by photographer Zack Smith’s project « My Louisiana Muse » as well as Nick Slie’s « Cry You One. » In June 2024 her land work, as well as her work with the rare medicinal plant vinéraire was featured in Monique Verdin and Rachel Breunlin's Botanica exhibit at the Cabildo in New Orleans.
Her family and home were featured in the Home and Garden Section of the New York Times in 2012. As recently as 2021 her work was featured by National Geographic and in a documentary that won the CreateLouisiana culture grant, Intention, by Olivia Perillo and Syd Horn. It is a film project that seeks to explore the untold feminine narratives of Cajun and Creole artists and healers.
She is a musician, well known in south Louisiana as a professional triangle player. She also sings and writes in Louisiana French, incorporating modern music with that from the Cajun and Creole archives. Her first original song ‘Maison Blanche’ released on The 78 Project in 2014, and in 2020 Nouveau Electric Records released her ‘Trois Rangs’ on 45rpm vinyl, remixed by Korey Richey (LCD Soundsystem). She has played triangle on the recent PBS documentary American Epic.
As of 2023 she is the lower school French teacher at the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. In August 2024, she began leading the Arnaudville French Table at Nunu's Cultural Center.
Ashlee raises her sons in the Prairie des Femmes.
