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
Henrietta McCormick Hill
Henrietta McCormick Hill was the wife of Senator Lister Hill, the Democratic politician from Alabama who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1923 and the U.S. Senate in 1938, serving until his retirement in 1969. During that time, Hill embraced the role of political wife, as she recounts in her posthumous book, A Senator’s Wife Remembers: From the Great Depression to the Great Society (2012). The book is an expanded version of an earlier self-published memoir, The Family Skeleton (1958).
Hill married her husband in 1928, and they had two children. Her books report numerous social events in Washington and Alabama, and some of the famous people she interacted with include: Eleanor Roosevelt, Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, Tallulah Bankhead, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Drew Pearson.
Just some of our many homes...
Augustus Thomas
310 A Street NE, Washington, DC
Gaston Neal
1740 Varnum Pl. NW
Temple Bailey
2500 Calvert St. NW
Jean Jules Jusserand
2460 16th St. NW
Georgia Douglas Johnson
1461 S St. NW, Washington DC
Irene Munson Rouse
1004 Prince Street, Alexandria, VA, USA
Howard Nemerov
5425 39th St NW, Washington DC
Charles Melville Pepper
3211 13th St. NW, Washington DC
Wendell Phillips Stafford
1725 Lamont St. NW, washington, DC
Wendell Phillips Stafford
1661 Crescent Pl. NW, Washington, DC
Jeanie Gould Lincoln
2108 R St NW, Washington DC
Jeanie Gould Lincoln
1620 19th St. NW, Washington, DC
Jeanie Gould Lincoln
2235 Q St NW, Washington DC
Jeanie Gould Lincoln
1717 20th St NW, Washington DC
William Meredith
6300 Bradley Blvd.
Alba de Céspedes
1529 18th St. NW
William Safire
6200 Elmwood Rd.
Rod Jellema
4526 Avondale St, Bethesda, MD, USA
Andrei Gromyko
1125 16th Street, NW
Hugh J. Parry
4814 Falstone Ave.
Alain Locke
1326 R St. NW, Washington, DC
Alain Locke
1309 R St. NW, Washington DC
Gil Scott-Heron
1 Logan Circle NW
Katherine Graham
2920 R St. NW, Washington DC
Katherine Graham
1624 Crescent Place, NW, Washington DC
Latest from Twitter
A Twitter List by TwitterDevAuthor Birthdays
in February
Emma Willard (February 23, 1787)
Henry Lytton Bulwer (February 13, 1801)
Harriet Ann Jacobs (February 11, 1813)
Frederick Douglass (February 1818)
Ellen Tarr O’Connor Calder (February 21, 1830)
Margaret Louisa Sullivan Burke (February 1836)
Henry Adams (February 16, 1838)
Jean Jules Jusserand (February 18, 1855)
Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice (February 27, 1859)
Philander Chase Johnson (February 6, 1866)
Zitkala-Sa (February 22, 1876)
Millicent Todd Bingham (February 5, 1880)
Alice Roosevelt Longworth (February 13, 1884)
Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885)
Mariano Brull (February 24, 1891)
Lillian Rogers Parks (February 1, 1897)
Luis Muñoz Marín (February 18, 1898)
Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902)
Una Marson (February 6, 1905)
St. Clair McKelway (February 13, 1905)
Dee Brown (February 28, 1908)
Selden Rodman (February 19, 1909)
Stephen Spender (February 28, 1909)
Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911)
Herman Taube (February 2, 1918)
Howard Nemerov (February 29, 1920)
Betty Friedan (February 4, 1921)
Margaret Truman (February 17, 1924)
Roger Mudd (February 9, 1928)
Toni Morrison (February 18, 1931)
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy (February 22, 1932)
Roland Flint (February 27, 1934)
Martin Galvin (February 21, 1937)
Siv Cedering Fox (February 5, 1939)
Donald Britton (February 16, 1951)