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
Mark Wayne Craver
Craver is the author of four books of poems: The Problem of Grace (Lost Road Publishers, 1986), Seven Crowns for the White Lady of the Other World and Blood Poems (Orchises Press, 1992), They Come for What You Love (Orchises Press, 1998), Say When: Last Poems (Orchises Press, 2004). Born in Kentucky, Craver attended William and Mary and George Mason University, and lived briefly in Japan. From 1985 through his death from a heart attack in 2004, he taught at George Mason University. He is remembered on the campus with a Poetry Prize in his name.
Just some of our many homes...
Mabel Loomis Todd
1305-1315 30th St. NW
Tcheng Yu-hsiu
2001 19th St NW
Eugene McCarthy
7902 Custer Rd.
Florence Jackson Stoddard
2019 N St. NW, Washington, DC
Yan Huiqing
2001 19th St NW
Whittaker Chambers
2831 28th St NW
Mary Church Terrell
326 T St. NW, Washington, DC
Zahara Heckscher
1214 Irving St NW, Washington, DC, USA
James M. Cain
6707 44th Ave.
Charles Warren Stoddard
300 N St. NW, Washington, DC
Georgia Douglas Johnson
1461 S St. NW, Washington DC
John F. Kennedy
1400 34th St. NW
John F. Kennedy
1528 31st St. NW
John F. Kennedy
3321 Dent Place NW
John F. Kennedy
2808 P St. NW, Washington, DC
John F. Kennedy
3307 N Street NW, Washington DC
John F. Kennedy
2480 16th St. NW
John F. Kennedy
1147 Chain Bridge Road
John F. Kennedy
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
David Brinkley
111 E. Melrose St.
Carlos Peña Rómulo
2253 R Street, NW, washington, DC
Carlos Peña Rómulo
3422 Garfield St NW
Frances Parkinson Keyes
2400 16th St. NW
Frances Parkinson Keyes
1900 Q St. NW, Washington DC
Laurence Stallings
1701 16th St. NW, Washington, DC
Mary Roberts Rinehart
2419 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Mary Roberts Rinehart
2660 Woodley Rd., Washington, DC
Florence Bailey
1834 Kalorama Rd NW, Washington, DC, USA
Lee Lally
4110 Emery Pl. NW
William Meredith
6300 Bradley Blvd.
Henry Adams
2017 I Street NW
Perle Mesta
2300 S St. NW, Washington DC
Perle Mesta
2600 Woodley Rd. NW
Perle Mesta
4040 52nd St. NW
Perle Mesta
1785 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Julia Thompson Von Stosch Schayer
1318 30th St NW
Cicely Angleton
4814 33rd Road North, Arlington, VA, United States
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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)