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

Vasily P. Aksyonov

The author of over 20 novels in Russian and English, Vasily P. Aksyonov, one of the most prominent Russian writers of the late 20th century, was stripped of his Soviet citizenship and lived for 24 years in exile in DC and Fairfax, Virginia, teaching at George Mason University and working as a journalist for Radio Liberty. His most famous works are The Burn (1975) and Generations of Winter (1992).

Aksyonov was a leader in the “youth prose” movement of the 1950s and 60s. His avant garde writing, liberal values and involvement with an independent magazine led to confrontation with Soviet authorities, although his citizenship was re-instated in 1990, during Mikhail Gorbachev‘s perestroika. In 2004, he resettled in Moscow, dividing his time between Russia and France.

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Just some of our many homes...

John Hay

1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Augustus Thomas

310 A Street NE, Washington, DC

Adam Francis Plummer

4811 Riverdale Rd.

Helen Churchill Candee

1621 New Hampshire Ave. NW

Paul Jennings

721 Madison Pl. NW, Washington, DC

Paul Jennings

1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Rachel Carson

11701 Berwick Rd.

Rachel Carson

204 Williamsburg Dr., SIlver Spring, MD

David Brinkley

111 E. Melrose St.

Clarice Lispector

4421 Ridge St., Chevy Chase, MD

Alice Dunbar-Nelson

1934 4th St. NW

Andy Razaf

531 9th St NE, Washington, DC

Hervé Alphand

2221 Kalorama Road, NW

Henrietta McCormick Hill

2400 16th St. NW

Henrietta McCormick Hill

1584 21st St. NW

Henrietta McCormick Hill

2311 Connecticut Ave. NW

Henrietta McCormick Hill

2540 Massachusetts Ave NW

Una Marson

1921 S St. NW, Washington DC

Henry Morgenthau III

3050 Military Rd NW, Washington, DC, USA

Stanley Kunitz

19 2nd St. NE, Washington DC

Henri Bonnet

2221 Kalorama Road, NW

Walter H. Mazyck

1229 Park Rd. NW, Washington DC

Laurence Stallings

1701 16th St. NW, Washington, DC

Edwin Palmer Hoyt

756 11th St. SE

Jessie Benton Frémont

1305-1315 30th St. NW

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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)