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

Julia Child

Best known as a chef and television personality who introduced French cuisine to Americans, Julia Child was also the author of a memoir, My Life in France (2006) and 16 cookbooks, including The Art of French Cooking (1961), The Way to Cook (1989), and Cooking with Master Chefs (1995).

Child served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II in DC, Sri Lanka, and China. Child lived in DC in the earliest days of her marriage, moving once a year, and teaching herself to cook. From 1946 to 1947, she lived on Wisconsin Avenue. From 1947 to 1948, she was on 35th Street, and in 1948 on Olive Street. After those moves, she left the country; she accompanied her husband to France, when he was posted there by the U.S. Department of State. A later move back to DC found her living at the N Street address.

From 1963 to 2000, Child starred in several popular TV cooking programs. Her kitchen, custom designed for her by her husband, was the setting for three of her shows in the 1990s; it is now on display at the National Museum of American History. She was the recipient of numerous honors, including the French Legion of Honor and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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Just some of our many homes...

Margaret Louisa Sullivan Burke

1602 15th St NW, Washington, DC, USA

Hervé Alphand

2221 Kalorama Road, NW

Brendan Ogg

1503 Red Oak Drive, Silver Spring, MD

Victor R. Daly

1614 T Street NW, Washington, DC

Victor R. Daly

1612 Manchester Lane NW

Hilary Tham

2600 N. Upshur St.

Ruth Moore

3031 Sedgwick St. NW

Joseph Kraft

3115 O Street NW, Washington, DC

O.O. Howard

607 Howard Place NW

Luis Muñoz Marín

1914 Connecticut Ave. NW

Mai-Mai Sze

2001 19th St NW

Julia Magruder

1906 Calvert St. NW

Gideon Ferebee, Jr.

71 N Street NW

Daoma Winston

3531 Yuma St. NW

Randall Jarrell

3916 Jenifer St. NW

Hugo Black

212 Quaker Lane N.

Stephen Spender

323 Second Street SE, Washington DC

Josiah Henson

11420 Old Georgetown Rd.

Henry Lytton Bulwer

1525 H St. NW

Edith Brown Mirick

3314 Newark St NW, Washington, DC, USA

Edith Brown Mirick

1638 R Street Northwest, Washington, DC, USA

Charlotte Forten Grimké

1608 R St. NW, Washington DC

Ella Dorsey

2121 California St. NW

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Author Birthdays
in April

George Washington Parke Custis (April 30, 1781)
Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822)
Ulysses S. Grant (April 27, 1822)
John Willis Menard (April 3, 1838)
Augustus Goodyear Heaton (April 28, 1844)
Thomas Nelson Page (April 23, 1853)
Henry Berenger (April 22, 1867)
Yan Huiqing (April 2, 1877)
Jessie Redmon Fauset (April 27, 1882)
Caresse Crosby (April 20, 1891)
Robert E. Sherwood (April 4, 1896)
Harlan Miller (April 3, 1897)
Duke Ellington (April 29, 1899)
Whittaker Chambers (April 1, 1901)
Clare Booth Luce (April 10, 1903)
Richard Eberhart (April 5, 1904)
Ward Dorrance (April 30, 1904)
Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905)
William W. Warner (April 2, 1920)
Charles W. Bailey II (April 28, 1929)
Fletcher Knebel (April 28, 1929)
Octave S. Stevenson (April 28, 1930)
Doug Lang (April 11, 1941)
Gil Scott-Heron (April 1, 1949)
Christopher Hitchens (April 13, 1949)
Essex Hemphill (April 16, 1957)
Yvonne Brown (April 18, 1977)