John S. Sledge is senior architectural historian for the Mobile Historic Development Commission and a member of the National Book Critics Circle. He holds a bachelor’s in history and Spanish from Auburn University and a master’s in historic preservation from Middle Tennessee State University. Sledge is the author of three books on Mobile’s historic architecture, as well as a collection of literary criticism, Southern Bound: A Gulf Coast Journalist on Books, Writers, and Literary Pilgrimages of the Heart, published by the University of South Carolina Press. He and his wife, Lynn, live in Fairhope, Alabama, half a mile from Mobile Bay.