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
Barbara Raskin
Best known for her novel, Hot Flashes (1987), Barbara Raskin moved to DC in 1958, and taught English at Catholic University and Georgetown University, and was a journalist for The New York Times, Washington Post, Washingtonian Magazine, and The New Republic.
Her other novels are The National Anthem (1977), Out of Order (1979), Loose Ends (1988), and Current Affairs (1990). Raskin was active in the movement against the Vietnam War, founding chair of the National Writers Union, and founder and president of Washington Independent Writers.
Just some of our many homes...
Luis Muñoz Marín
1914 Connecticut Ave. NW
Julia Magruder
1906 Calvert St. NW
Elizabeth C. Sullam
1662 32nd St NW
Elizabeth C. Sullam
725 24th St. NW
George M. Lightfoot
1329 Missouri Ave. NW
Seabury Grandin Quinn
1430 Monroe Street NE
Edward Weismiller
2400 Virginia Ave. NW
L. Ron Hubbard
1812 19th St NW, Washington DC
Catherine Marshall
3100 Cathedral Ave NW
St. Clair McKelway
2805 P St. NW, Washington, DC
St. Clair McKelway
2071 Park Rd. NW, Washington, DC
Lilian May Miller
1458 Columbia Rd. NW
Shirley Graves Cochrane
127 Seventh Street SE, Washington, DC
Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore
1837 M St NW, Washington, DC
Herbert Hoover
2300 S St. NW, Washington DC
Herbert Hoover
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Emma Willard
1305-1315 30th St. NW
Jim Everhard
1614 17th St. NW
Gore Vidal
3930 Connecticut Ave NW
Gore Vidal
2660 Woodley Rd. NW
Joseph Alsop
2720 Dumbarton St. NW
Zora Neale Hurston
3017 Sherman Ave. NW
Zora Neale Hurston
901 Rhode Island Ave. NW
Edith Hamilton
2448 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Maria Martins
3000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
O.O. Howard
607 Howard Place NW
David Kresh
601 North Carolina Avenue SE
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)