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
Emily Lee Sherwood
Originally from Indiana, Emily Lee Sherwood first wrote for The Herald and Era in Indianapolis. During the Civil War she travelled with her enlisted husband and remained on the front for over a year, contributing war sketches for Indianapolis papers and the Ladies Repository.
After the war she moved to Washington where her husband practiced law. She was a regular correspondent for the Sunday Herald and her writings appeared in the Daily Commercial, Daily Republican, New York Sun and The New York World.
She was active in Washington society. She was one of the original organizers of the Daughters of the American Revolution and for over 20 years served as president of the Woman’s Clinic, the first medical institution in the district dedicated to the care of women and girls. She also served on the Clara Barton Memorial Association.
Sherwood was the author of Willis Peyton’s Inheritance: The Story of a Claim (1889), a novel set in Washington’s social scene, as well as two non-fiction books: Story of the Records: Daughters of the American Revolution, (1906, co-authored with Mary Smith Lockwood), and Character Sketches of the Pioneers of the Women’s Centenary Association (1910).
She died in Washington and is buried with her first husband at Arlington National Cemetery.
Just some of our many homes...
Jessie Redmon Fauset
1812 13th St. NW
Jessie Redmon Fauset
1716 17th St. NW
Richard Bruce Nugent
1231 T St. NW, Washington DC
Esther Popel Shaw
111 Columbia Rd NW, Washington, DC, USA
Mery Berri Chapman Hansbrough
1100 Alabama Ave SE, Washington, DC, USA
Caresse Crosby
2008 Q St. NW, Washington DC
William W. Warner
2243 47th St. NW
Ahmos Zu-Bolton II
1908 Florida Ave. NW
Peter Brown
40 Florida Ave. NW
Betty Parry
4814 Falstone Ave.
James Roosevelt II
2133 R Street, Washington, DC
James Roosevelt II
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Margaret Louisa Sullivan Burke
1602 15th St NW, Washington, DC, USA
Gil Scott-Heron
1 Logan Circle NW
Alice Tisdale Hobart
3031 Sedgwick St. NW
William Waring Cuney
503 Florida Ave. NW
Edith Hamilton
2448 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Juan Ramón Jiménez
4310 Queensbury Rd.
Juan Ramón Jiménez
2480 16th St. NW
Ann B. Knox
2711 Ordway St. NW
Jean Jules Jusserand
2460 16th St. NW
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.
8 Logan Circle NW
J. Saunders Redding
7935 Orchid St. NW
Paul Laurence Dunbar
1934 4th St. NW, Washington DC
Floyd Dell
1851 Ingleside Terrace NW
Floyd Dell
6307 Lone Oak Dr.
Barbara F. Lefcowitz
4989 Battery Lane, Bethesda, MD, USA
LaSalle Corbell Pickett
2853 Ontario Rd. NW
Ella Dorsey
2121 California St. NW
Latest from Twitter
A Twitter List by TwitterDevAuthor Birthdays
in May
Benjamin Ogle Tayloe (May 21, 1796)
Adam Francis Plummer (May 14, 1819)
Jessie Benton Frémont (May 31, 1824)
LaSalle Corbell Pickett (May 16, 1843)
John Bigelow, Jr. (May 12, 1854)
Jeanie Gould Lincoln (May 28, 1855)
Robert Peary (May 6, 1856)
Wendell Phillips Stafford (May 1, 1861)
Saint-John Perse (May 31, 1887)
Henri Bonnet (May 26, 1888)
Katherine Anne Porter (May 15, 1890)
Archibald MacLeish (May 7, 1892)
Rudolph Fisher (May 9, 1897)
Sterling A. Brown (May 1, 1901)
Manley Wade Wellman (May 21, 1903)
Anna Roosevelt Halsted (May 3, 1906)
William Waring Cuney (May 6, 1906)
Rachel Carson (May 27, 1907)
Hervé Alphand (May 31, 1907)
Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914)
Herman Wouk (May 27, 1915)
John F. Kennedy (May 29, 1917)
Daniel Berrigan (May 9, 1921)
Claribel Alegría (May 12, 1924)
David Shears (May 20, 1926)
Linda Pastan (May 27, 1932)
Stanley Plumly (May 23, 1939)
Nora Ephron (May 19, 1941)
Lee Lally (May 1943)
C. Bruce Johnson (May 5, 1950)
Tim Russert (May 7, 1950)