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.

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

Belle Waring

Belle Waring is the author of two poetry collections: Refuge (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990), which won the Associated Writing Programs’ Award in 1989 and was cited by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of 1990; and Dark Blonde (Sarabande Books, 1997), which won the Larry Levis Prize in 1998.

Waring worked as a nurse for over 17 years, then for 13 years as a librarian and science writer at the National Institutes of Health. She also volunteered as a tutor for students whose first language was not English.

(Read more)

Just some of our many homes...

Owen Dodson

1813 16th St. NW, Washington DC

Owen Dodson

1707 Columbia Rd. NW

Robert Sargent

815 A St. NE, Washington, DC

Lillian Rogers Parks

1846 Vernon Street, Washington DC

Robert Rice Reynolds

1 2nd Street Northeast, Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, USA

Frances Parkinson Keyes

2400 16th St. NW

Frances Parkinson Keyes

1900 Q St. NW, Washington DC

George M. Lightfoot

1329 Missouri Ave. NW

James Reston

3124 Woodley Rd. NW, Washington DC

James Reston

1637 34th St NW, Washington, DC, USA

Carlos Peña Rómulo

2253 R Street, NW, washington, DC

Carlos Peña Rómulo

3422 Garfield St NW

Carlos Fuentes

2829 16th Street, NW

Muna Lee

144 Constitution Ave NE

Liam Rector

1824 Belmont Rd., Washington DC

Liam Rector

1613 Harvard St. NW

Lucille Fletcher

3435 8th St S

Joseph Kraft

3115 O Street NW, Washington, DC

Walter H. Mazyck

1229 Park Rd. NW, Washington DC

Yan Huiqing

2001 19th St NW

Art Buchwald

2650 Virginia Ave. NW

Art Buchwald

4327 Hawthorne Place Northwest, Washington, DC, USA

M. Carl Holman

1322 Mississippi Ave. SE

Henry Brandon

3005 O Street Northwest, Washington, DC, USA

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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)