A Jamaican writer, feminist, and activist, Una Marson is the author of four books of poems, Tropic Reveries (1930), Heights and Depths(1932), Moth and the Star (1937), and Towards the Stars (1945). She also wrote three plays, At What Price (1933), London Calling (1938), and Pocomania (1938). Marson spent her adult life split primarily between Jamaica (where she worked as an editor and helped promote West Indian literature), […]
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Joseph Owono
Joseph Owono went abroad to earn his university degree in France before returning to his native Cameroon to write. He is the author of a nonfiction book, Le Problème du marriage dotal au Cameroun français (1953) and a novel Tante Bella (1959), which was the first novel to be published in Cameroon. Both books address the exploitation of women in […]
Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Roosevelt Longworth is the author of an autobiography, Crowded Hours (1933). The daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, Longworth married Congressman Nicholas Longworth and was a famous Washington socialite. Known for her wild and unconventional ways, she gambled, smoked in public, and had extramarital affairs. Gossip columns of the times reported her antics: plunging into a swimming pool fully clothed, placing […]
Jeanie Gould Lincoln
Born in Troy, New York, Jeanie Gould was the author of books of poetry, romance and historical fiction. Her early writing was championed by the celebrated editor Nathaniel Parker Willis. Her books include a collection of poems, A Chaplet Of Leaves (1869) and the historical novels Marjorie’s Quest (1872), A Genuine Girl (1896), An Unwilling Maid (1897), A Pretty Tory (1899), A Javelin of Fate (1905), […]
Sinclair Lewis
The first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1930), Sinclair Lewis lived and worked in DC during what would be his most productive period. He wrote his classic books Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), and Elmer Gantry (1927) while living in the capital. A number of his works are partly set in Washington, including Main Street, It Can’t Happen Here (1935), Gideon Planish (1943) […]
Frances Parkinson Keyes
A prolific novelist, Frances Parkinson Keyes was popular in her time, although her writing is dated and sentimental now. She also wrote three nonfiction books about her experiences living in Washington, and one book of poems, The Happy Wanderer (1935). Keyes’s novels include The Old Gray Homestead (1919), Queen Anne’s Lace (1930), Senator Marlowe’s Daughter (1933), Honor Bright (1936), Parts Unknown (1938), All That Glitters (1941), Crescent Carnival (1942), Came a Cavalier (1947), Joy […]
Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes began his career during the Harlem Renaissance period, living in DC for one year and four months, then moving to Pennsylvania and New York. While living in DC, he published his first book of poems, The Weary Blues (1926), and wrote most of the poems that would become his second book, Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927). […]
L. Ron Hubbard
The founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard was a writer of science fiction and fantasy books. He attended George Washington University for two years in the 1930s, dropping out before earning a degree. It was at this time that he began publishing in pulp magazines, such as Thrilling Adventure, often under pen names. […]
O.B. Hardison, Jr.
O.B. Hardison is the author of two books of poems, Lyrics and Elegies (1958), and Pro Musica Antiqua (1977), as well as multiple scholarly books, including Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (1965), Toward Freedom and Dignity (1972), Entering the Maze: Identity and Change in Modern Culture (1982), and Prosody and Purpose in the English Renaissance (1989). Hardison was a professor of English at […]
Jim Everhard
Jim Everhard is the author of a book of poems, Cute(1982). He grew up in Northern Virginia, served in the U.S. Navy from 1966 to 1970, and spent the next eleven years working on a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from George Mason University. He lived at this address in the 1980s, until his […]