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

Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens is the author of a memoir, Hitch-22 (2010), and 16 books of nonfiction on such subjects as atheism, Thomas Jefferson, George Orwell, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Mother Teresa, the war in Iraq, and the British monarchy. Some of his titles include Prepared for the Worst (1988), God Is Not Great (2007), Arguably (2011) and the posthumous Mortality (2012). In addition, he edited ten books, and was a contributor to eight others. Hitchens was a columnist and literary critic at Vanity Fair, Slate, The Atlantic, World Affairs, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Nation.

Born in Britain, Hitchens attended Oxford, and was radicalized in the 1960s, when he was often arrested at political rallies opposing the war in Vietnam, and became a correspondent for International Socialism magazine. In later life he moved away from the left, supporting the Iraq War and endorsing U.S. President George W. Bush.

Hitchens taught at the New School and Berkeley, and was a frequent commentator on TV, radio, and in newspapers. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1981, and became a U.S. citizen in 2007. He lived in DC from 1982 until his death.

(Read more)

Just some of our many homes...

Helen Herron Taft

2215 Wyoming Ave. NW

Helen Herron Taft

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC, USA

Gil Scott-Heron

1 Logan Circle NW

Molly Elliot Seawell

1767 P St. NW, Washington, DC

Sinclair Lewis

3028 Q St. NW, Washington, DC

Sinclair Lewis

1639 19th St. NW, Washington DC

Eli Flam

11 Pinecrest Court, Greenbelt, MD, USA

Yoonmee Chang

5004 Fulton St NW, Washington, DC, USA

Mary P. Burrill

1716 17th St. NW

Mary P. Burrill

1256 Kearney St. NE

Mary P. Burrill

1758 T St. NW, Washington DC

Margaret Landon

2910 Brandywine Street NW

Margaret Landon

4711 Fulton St NW

Henry Berenger

2460 16th St. NW

Florence Jackson Stoddard

2019 N St. NW, Washington, DC

Juan Ramón Jiménez

4310 Queensbury Rd.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

2480 16th St. NW

Emily Hawthorn

1516 Q Street Northwest, Washington, DC, USA

Emily Hawthorn

1231 W Street Northwest, Washington, DC, USA

Julia Magruder

1906 Calvert St. NW

John Hays Hammond

2221 Kalorama Road NW

John Hays Hammond

1500 Rhode Island Ave. NW

Neil Merton Judd

1732 G Street NW, Washington, DC

Neil Merton Judd

1734 U Street NW, Washington, DC

Neil Merton Judd

1903 15th St. NW, Washington, DC

Neil Merton Judd

1808 I Street NW, washington, DC

Neil Merton Judd

4000 Cathedral Ave. NW

Neil Merton Judd

1433 Highland Drive, Silver Spring, MD, USA

Ellis L. Yochelson

12303 Stafford Lane

Anna Julia Cooper

201 T Street NW, Washington DC

Theodore Roosevelt

1212 18th St. NW

Theodore Roosevelt

1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Theodore Roosevelt

736 Jackson Place NW, Washington, dC

Thomas Law

1252 6th St. SW

John A. Joyce

3238 R St. NW, Washington DC

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Author Birthdays
in March

Emily Lee Sherwood (March 28, 1839)
Emily Hawthorn (March 21, 1845)
Ella Dorsey (March 2, 1855)
John Hays Hammond (March 31, 1855)
Isabel Weld Perkins Anderson (March 3, 1876)
Margaret Fishback (March 10, 1900)
Alba de Céspedes (March 11, 1911)
L. Ron Hubbard (March 13, 1911)
Lucille Fletcher (March 28, 1912)
Francis Coleman Rosenberger (March 22, 1915)
Henry Brandon (March 9, 1916)
Eugene McCarthy (March 29, 1916)
Robert Lowell (March 1, 1917)
Pearl Bailey (March 29, 1918)
Douglass Wallop (March 8, 1920)
Anne Truitt (March 16, 1921)
Shirley Graves Cochrane (March 5, 1925)
Stacy Johnson Tuthill (March 10, 1925)
Rafael Squirru (March 23, 1925)
Sandra Day O’Connor (March 26, 1930)
Judith Farr (March 13, 1936)
Jane Flanders (March 26, 1940)
James Oliver Horton (March 28, 1943)
Askia Muhammad (March 28, 1945)
Mark Wayne Craver (March 3, 1956)
Venus Thrash (March 30, 1959)