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
Belle Waring
Belle Waring is the author of two poetry collections: Refuge (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990), which won the Associated Writing Programs’ Award in 1989 and was cited by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 1990; and Dark Blonde (Sarabande Books, 1997), which won the Larry Levis Prize in 1998.
Waring worked as a nurse for over 17 years, then for 13 years as a librarian and science writer at the National Institutes of Health. She also volunteered as a tutor for students whose first language was not English.
Just some of our many homes...
Owen Dodson
1813 16th St. NW, Washington DC
Owen Dodson
1707 Columbia Rd. NW
Robert Sargent
815 A St. NE, Washington, DC
Lillian Rogers Parks
1846 Vernon Street, Washington DC
Robert Rice Reynolds
1 2nd Street Northeast, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, USA
Frances Parkinson Keyes
2400 16th St. NW
Frances Parkinson Keyes
1900 Q St. NW, Washington DC
George M. Lightfoot
1329 Missouri Ave. NW
James Reston
3124 Woodley Rd. NW, Washington DC
James Reston
1637 34th St NW, Washington, DC, USA
Carlos Peña Rómulo
2253 R Street, NW, washington, DC
Carlos Peña Rómulo
3422 Garfield St NW
Carlos Fuentes
2829 16th Street, NW
Muna Lee
144 Constitution Ave NE
Liam Rector
1824 Belmont Rd., Washington DC
Liam Rector
1613 Harvard St. NW
Lucille Fletcher
3435 8th St S
Joseph Kraft
3115 O Street NW, Washington, DC
Walter H. Mazyck
1229 Park Rd. NW, Washington DC
Yan Huiqing
2001 19th St NW
Art Buchwald
2650 Virginia Ave. NW
Art Buchwald
4327 Hawthorne Place Northwest, Washington, DC, USA
M. Carl Holman
1322 Mississippi Ave. SE
Henry Brandon
3005 O Street Northwest, Washington, DC, USA
Latest from Twitter
A Twitter List by TwitterDevAuthor 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)