Comments on: These Were the Writers in My Neighborhood

These Were the Writers in My Neighborhood

HonoriaGlossop — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:42:45 -0800

Have your Chipotle burrito at John Dos Passos' house. Read Silent Spring in Silver Spring. You can now take a real or virtual walking tour of literary DC, from Roald Dahl to Philip K. Dick to Zora Neale Hurston with DCWriters.org. Two DC-area poets have put together a compendium of 123 (and growing) residences in the DC area where novelists, poets, and playwrights plied their trade. The buildings may not all have plaques, but they are still standing: Dan Vera and Kim Roberts focused on not "documenting what used to be here, but what people could actually go and take a look at."

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 18:51:05 -0800

Hey, this is great! I didn't know about this project. I had hopes, given the username, that I had somehow missed Plum living in DC, but he's not listed.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:00:56 -0800

If anyone wants to come over to see where I write my tweets it's cool just please BYOTaco.

By: vhsiv

vhsiv — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:02:04 -0800

Wow -- this is cool! Actual writers that I respect. DC has always been such a backwater to me. (And, I'm a native, 5th generation Washingtonian.)

By: kittens for breakfast

kittens for breakfast — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:09:30 -0800

This is neat, but...like...where's Poe?

By: quadrilaterals

quadrilaterals — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:21:12 -0800

I used to live at Edith Hamilton's house! The rent is really cheap. Anyhow, in the backyard, there's a small stone griffin. I took this as a trace of Edith.

By: ryanshepard

ryanshepard — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 19:29:11 -0800

Kim Roberts has also posted a meticulously-researched guide to Walt Whitman's homes and workplaces in DC. This is neat, but...like...where's Poe? Poe visited DC, but never lived closer to it than Baltimore and Richmond.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:17:55 -0800

Neat; thanks for posting this!

By: charlie don't surf

charlie don't surf — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:47:50 -0800

Sorry, nope. PKD is a California writer.

By: Philby

Philby — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:58:04 -0800

charlie don't surf: "Sorry, nope. PKD is a California writer." From the PKD page: He lived in DC from 1936 to 1938, attending DC Public Schools for grades two through four.

By: Cocodrillo

Cocodrillo — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:19:11 -0800

I saw this in the Post yesterday and it made me happy. Though is it really fair to count Ezra Pound (committed to St Elizabeth's)?

By: charlie don't surf

charlie don't surf — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:11:37 -0800

I read that PKD was in DC for 3 years in his childhood. That doesn't make you a DC writer. Sorry, nope. PKD is a California writer.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:34:44 -0800

Sorry, nope. PKD is a California writer. You're welcome to him. He was a hack, and not in the good way. There. I said it. I know a lot of people think he was great, but the stuff I've read was virtually unreadable. I like the movies, where the ideas can escape the poor writing, but you can have the books. You can take Cormac McCarthy at the same time, although I'd like to punch him in his conservative and ultraviolent dick before you do.

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:35:59 -0800

Though is it really fair to count Ezra Pound (committed to St Elizabeth's)? And when he was committed there it was a federal enclave, not DC proper.

By: Potomac Avenue

Potomac Avenue — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:23:37 -0800

What could be more of 'DC proper' than being locked up in an institution inured to the outside world trapped in an insane ideology babbling out the windows?

By: chavenet

chavenet — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:35:32 -0800

Neat site. But why is John Dos Passos classified as a "Latino" writer?

By: windowbr8r

windowbr8r — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:58:41 -0800

DC is slowly getting cooler, especially since I left in '09.

By: EvaDestruction

EvaDestruction — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:42:37 -0800

This is neat! I would bump it up to "fantastic!" if it included (where possible) how long the writers were resident at each address, and what pieces, if any, they were working on while living there.

By: bardic

bardic — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:57:53 -0800

"PKD is a California writer." A California writer who lived in DC as a young boy. Did you RTFA? It's a walking tour, not a museum.