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

Walter H. Mazyck

Walter H. Mazyck is the author of the landmark study George Washington and the Negro (1932).  He also published poems, mostly in fraternity publications, and contributed to The History of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, 1911 – 1935.  Mazyck attended law school at Howard University, earning a degree in 1922, and served in the Infantry during World War I, attaining the rank of Captain.  He worked as a law clerk in the Navy Department.

Mazyck was active in the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Alpha Chapter, a fraternity first established by students at Howard University, working under faculty advisor Dr. Ernest E. Just.  In the last ten years of his life, Mazyck was Grand Keeper of Records and Seals and helped establish a National Omega House in DC.

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Just some of our many homes...

James Weldon Johnson

1333 R St. NW, Washington DC

Carter G. Woodson

1538 9th St., NW

Hugo Black

212 Quaker Lane N.

Whittaker Chambers

2831 28th St NW

Joaquin Miller

Rock Creek Park, Beach Drive at Military Rd, Washington DC

Annulet Andrews

2400 16th St. NW

Edward Christopher Williams

912 Westminster St. NW

Elizabeth Bishop

1312 30th Street NW

Jean Kerr

1003 Varnum St. NE

David Brinkley

111 E. Melrose St.

William Henry Babcock

1113 Independence Ave SE, Washington, DC, USA

William Henry Babcock

303 E Street Northeast, Washington, DC, USA

Rachel Carson

11701 Berwick Rd.

Rachel Carson

204 Williamsburg Dr., SIlver Spring, MD

Chasen Gaver

1801 Clydesdale Pl. NW

Sigmund Skard

3704 33rd Place NW

Alain Locke

1326 R St. NW, Washington, DC

Alain Locke

1309 R St. NW, Washington DC

Louis J. Halle

1423 Shepherd St. NW

Blanca Varela

1928 35th Pl. NW

Harvey Fergusson

1435 Clifton St. NW

Barbara Raskin

1820 Wyoming Ave. NW

John Killens

1650 Harvard St. NW

Ulysses S. Grant

3238 R St. NW, Washington DC

Ulysses S. Grant

1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Ellis L. Yochelson

12303 Stafford Lane

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Author 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)