John Pope has been a reporter in New Orleans for almost 50 years. Currently, he is a contributing writer for the Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate. He was a member of the Times-Picayune’s team that won two Pulitzer Prizes in 2006 for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Pope's first book, an anthology of his obituaries and funeral stories called "Getting Off at Elysian Fields: Obituaries from the New Orleans Times-Picayune," was published in 2015. He is a member of the Society of Professional Obituary Writers. Pope received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Texas, where he worked on the student newspaper the Daily Texan.