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

Katherine Zadravec

Zadravec is the author of three books of poems: : Imitations (1988), How to Travel (1987), and Shewski’s Ladder (chapbook, 1980). She was an administrator for the PEN/Faulkner Prize for Fiction, organizer of a major conference and exhibition on Emily Dickinson at the Folger Shakespeare Library, host of the Mid-Day Muse reading series, founder of the Emily Dickinson Society, and a columnist for The Washington Post for 30 years. In addition, she taught at Trinity College, and founded the Writer’s Week at Manhattanville College. She and her husband Martin Zadravec raised six children. She died of cancer at age 56.

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Just some of our many homes...

R.W. Apple

1509 28th St. NW, Washington DC

Rafael Heliodoro Valle

4715 16th St NW

Anna Julia Cooper

201 T Street NW, Washington DC

Mary Zurhorst Gray

301 East Capitol, SE, Washington, DC

Fletcher Knebel

4832 Langdrum Lane, Chevy Chase, MD, USA

Fletcher Knebel

1528 Wiscasset Road, Bethesda, MD, USA

John Henry Paynter

322 A St. NE, Washington DC

Edwin Zimmerman

1824 Phelps Place Northwest, Washington, DC, USA

Katherine Garrison Chapin

1669 31st St. NW

James M. Cain

6707 44th Ave.

Pepita Crounse

2419 Wyoming Ave NW, Washington, DC, USA

Pepita Crounse

3031 Gates Rd NW, Washington, DC, USA

Vasily P. Aksyonov

1812 Wyoming Ave. NW

Vasily P. Aksyonov

4434 Lingan Rd. NW

Andrei Gromyko

1125 16th Street, NW

Mary Church Terrell

326 T St. NW, Washington, DC

Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice

1525 H St NW, Washington, DC, United States

Harvey Fergusson

1435 Clifton St. NW

LaSalle Corbell Pickett

2853 Ontario Rd. NW

George Watterston

224 Second St. SE, Washington, DC

James Reston

3124 Woodley Rd. NW, Washington DC

James Reston

1637 34th St NW, Washington, DC, USA

John Willis Menard

1843 7th Street Northwest, Shaw, Washington, DC, USA

Paul Laurence Dunbar

1934 4th St. NW, Washington DC

Joseph Kraft

3115 O Street NW, Washington, DC

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Author 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)