This project documents the homes of literary authors who once lived in the greater Washington, DC region. We wanted to honor the widest range of literary authors possible, including authors of different backgrounds, writing styles, and influences. We include novelists, poets, playwrights, and memoirists. We do not include writers who were solely journalists, and, with few exceptions, authors of genre literature. We have tried hard to include authors from a range of time periods, from the city’s founding in 1800 through the present.
Recent Additions
What’s New?
We got a great review in the Washington City Paper in August 2020, calling our project “an online database of more than 300 writers and their D.C. homes [that] offers a glittering who’s who of Washington literary history.”
Our official relaunch celebration took place on November 29, 2018. After a decade of implementing this project independently, co-editors Kim Roberts and Dan Vera were pleased to celebrate the project’s new permanent home. Sponsored by HumanitiesDC, this updated version of the website features a responsive design easily navigable by desktop or smartphone users. They have promised to continue and preserve our research on writers’ homes in perpetuity.
HumanitiesDC is one of 56 state humanities councils and the capital’s local affiliate for the National Endowment for the Humanities.
With our latest additions, we are now documenting the homes of 405 writers who lived and wrote in the greater Washington, DC region!
Featured Author
Margaret Truman
The daughter of President Harry S. Truman, Margaret Truman was a singer and writer of memoirs, biographies, history books and mystery novels.
She moved to Washington to attend George Washington University. She later served as a hostess and good-will ambassador during her father’s administration.
A professional singer, Truman sang at Constitution Hall in 1947. When her father left the White House, she moved to New York City to continue her work with the National Broadcasting Company, with which she had signed a contract in February 1951.
Truman was the author of four books of memoir and biography: Souvenir, Margaret Truman’s Own Story with Margaret Cousins (1956), Harry S. Truman (1973), Bess W. Truman (1986), and The Life Of A White House Girl (2003). She edited Letters From Father: The Truman Family’s Personal Correspondence (1981), and Where The Buck Stops: The Personal and Private Writings of Harry S. Truman (1989). Her nonfiction books included White House Pets (1969), Women of Courage (1976), First Ladies (1995), and The President’s House: 1800 to the Present (2004).
Truman was also the credited author of 25 mysteries all set in Washington, including Murder in the White House (1980), Murder on Capitol Hill (1981), Murder in the Supreme Court (1982), Murder in the Smithsonian (1983), Murder on Embassy Row (1984), Murder at the Kennedy Center (1989), Murder at the Library of Congress (1999), Murder in Foggy Bottom (2000), and Murder on K Street (2007). Her first book in the series was adapted into the 1997 film Murder at 1600 starring Wesley Snipes, Alan Alda and Diane Lane.
Truman lived in an apartment on Connecticut Avenue with her parents while her father was in the Senate and she was a student at George Washington University. She later lived in the White House during her father’s administration.
Just some of our many homes...
Mary Roberts Rinehart
2419 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Mary Roberts Rinehart
2660 Woodley Rd., Washington, DC
Paul Claudel
2460 16th St. NW
Pepita Crounse
2419 Wyoming Ave NW, Washington, DC, USA
Pepita Crounse
3031 Gates Rd NW, Washington, DC, USA
Betty Parry
4814 Falstone Ave.
Robert Lowell
721 Madison Place NW, Washington, DC
Blanca Varela
1928 35th Pl. NW
Liam Rector
1824 Belmont Rd., Washington DC
Liam Rector
1613 Harvard St. NW
Jean Toomer
1422 Harvard St. NW
Ellen Tarr O’Connor Calder
1015 O St. NW, Washington DC
Jim Everhard
1614 17th St. NW
Sterling A. Brown
1222 Kearney St. NE
Charles Warren Stoddard
300 N St. NW, Washington, DC
Belle Waring
3940 Madison Street, Hyattsville, MD, USA
Harvey Fergusson
1435 Clifton St. NW
Carlos Fuentes
2829 16th Street, NW
Mary Stone Hanley
304 Aspen St NW, Washington, DC, USA
Edward Everett Hale
1741 N St. NW, Washington DC
Ann B. Knox
2711 Ordway St. NW
Muna Lee
144 Constitution Ave NE
Mary Church Terrell
326 T St. NW, Washington, DC
Mary E. Nealy
1712 9th Street NW
Mary E. Nealy
1517 12th St NW
Neil Merton Judd
1732 G Street NW, Washington, DC
Neil Merton Judd
1734 U Street NW, Washington, DC
Neil Merton Judd
1903 15th St. NW, Washington, DC
Neil Merton Judd
1808 I Street NW, washington, DC
Neil Merton Judd
4000 Cathedral Ave. NW
Neil Merton Judd
1433 Highland Drive, Silver Spring, MD, USA
Latest from Twitter
A Twitter List by TwitterDevAuthor Birthdays
in March
Emily Lee Sherwood (March 28, 1839)
Emily Hawthorn (March 21, 1845)
Ella Dorsey (March 2, 1855)
John Hays Hammond (March 31, 1855)
Isabel Weld Perkins Anderson (March 3, 1876)
Margaret Fishback (March 10, 1900)
Alba de Céspedes (March 11, 1911)
L. Ron Hubbard (March 13, 1911)
Lucille Fletcher (March 28, 1912)
Francis Coleman Rosenberger (March 22, 1915)
Henry Brandon (March 9, 1916)
Eugene McCarthy (March 29, 1916)
Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917)
Pearl Bailey (March 29, 1918)
Douglass Wallop (March 8, 1920)
Anne Truitt (March 16, 1921)
Shirley Graves Cochrane (March 5, 1925)
Stacy Johnson Tuthill (March 10, 1925)
Rafael Squirru (March 23, 1925)
Sandra Day O’Connor (March 26, 1930)
Judith Farr (March 13, 1936)
Jane Flanders (March 26, 1940)
James Oliver Horton (March 28, 1943)
Askia Muhammad (March 28, 1945)
Mark Wayne Craver (March 3, 1956)
Venus Thrash (March 30, 1959)