<B>Patricia Brady</B> is a social and cultural historian. She has a Ph.D. in history from Tulane University, and served as director of publications at the Historic New Orleans Collection for twenty years. For the past four years she has headed DivaBooks, a publication and video consulting company. She has written extensively about Martha Washington and her family; among her works are <I>Nelly Custis Lewis’s Housekeeping Book</I>, <I>George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly</I>, and “Martha Washington” in <I>American First Ladies: Their Lives and Legacy</I>. In commemoration of the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase, she produced the video <I>Jefferson, Napoleon, and the Letter That Bought a Continent</I>.
<P> Dr. Brady was vice president for programming of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival for many years and now serves as president of the Festival's boards. She is a member of the board of the Louisiana State Museum and a member of the Southern Historical Association, the Southern Association of Women Historians, the Louisiana Historical Association, and the New Orleans/Gulf South Booksellers Association; she served as president of the latter two organizations. She lives in New Orleans.