Editors
John E. Wade II
Executive Editor
John E. Wade II, born in Decatur, Alabama and longtime New Orleans resident, is a philanthropist, investor, and retired accountant, who is active in his church.
Appointed to the Air Force Academy after high school, Wade received an honorable medical discharge resulting from a severe case of meningitis and his first experience with bipolar disorder. He eventually enrolled at the University of Georgia, received his BBA and MA, was named the most outstanding senior accounting student, and served as President of Beta Alpha Psi, the accounting honor society.
Wade worked for two accounting firms and several corporations before joining the federal government in 1979. He retired in 1999.
He began writing in 1998, and his first attempt at a book-length work, Focus Investing, was purchased, but never published, because of changing market conditions. Still, John had discovered the joy of writing, and has since produced many essays and a full-length memoir.
In 2006 year, Wade started a non-profit corporation, Soldiers of Love, which encourages and enables ordinary citizens to work toward a better world. Soldiers of Love partners with other charities with similar goals, both in the local New Orleans community and beyond.
During his travels – he has visited China, India, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Brazil, Argentina and much of Europe, Costa Rica, the Caribbean, including Cuba, as well as much of North America – Wade was inspired to collect essays by some of our greatest writers, thinkers, and experts that would address the question, “What would it take to make a heaven on earth?” The result, HOW TO ACHIEVE A HEAVEN ON EARTH, was published by Pelican Publishing Company in January 2010.
John lives in New Orleans, where he enjoys the city’s unique food, architecture, and music, as well as Saints football games. He travels extensively abroad, and in the United States – especially to Birmingham, Alabama, where his daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter and grandson live, and to Mississippi, to watch the State Bulldog games in Davis Wade Stadium, named after his father.
Patricia Kennedy Livingston
Associate Editor
Patricia Kennedy Livingston earned an undergraduate degree in art history with a minor in journalism at Southern Methodist University, and a master’s of art degree in drama and communications at the University of New Orleans. Since the fall of 1987, she has written a weekly column in The Times-Picayune, New Orleans’ daily newspaper. She also has written numerous articles for the paper, on topics ranging from biomedical engineering to antique dolls, from historic houses to early music. She edited five of Chef Paul Prudhomme’s cookbooks, wrote for and edited a culinary magazine, and wrote the chapter on trout amandine in New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories, published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2009. As a freelance writer, she wrote for trade journals and wrote and published newsletters for business organizations. In addition, she provided all written material for a small public relations firm whose clients included boutique hotels and a critically acclaimed restaurant in New Orleans, several non-profit organizations, and a world-renowned ophthalmologist.
