Ebony Walden, author the memoir Where I’m From, tells us, “I have always been someone who could envision a life beyond my circumstances. That is how I got to Georgetown and UVA. In 2007, I made a visi...

I was moved to tears by a footnote in Rashid Khalidi’s book The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine that described the theft of 70,000 books from Palestinian homes and private libraries by Zionist force...

Measure for Measure is counted as one of Shakespeare’s “problem plays,” in part due to its sometimes uneasy veering between comedy and tragedy…. Despite some flaws in Shakespeare’s plot, the cast and...

Grief is one of the great universal subjects of poetry, indeed, of all arts. The loss of a child is obviously one of the most tragic triggers of grief; if one is a parent, it’s almost unimaginable. a...

When Europe’s greatest composer meets Europe’s most powerful ruler, one expects sparks to fly. And so they do, in Shakespeare Theatre Company’s powerful production of The Score by Oliver Cotton. But...

Despite reasonably vigorous efforts to keep up, I had never before experienced the work of towering American playwright August Wilson (two Pulitzers, National Humanities Medal, a Tony Award, among man...

Set in the same fictional independent D.C. bookstore as Coll’s Bookish People , Word Salad is a completely standalone novel with mostly new characters, including the events manager and protagonist,...

Hasan Dudar’s debut book is a collection of linked stories, Carryout (University of Iowa Press, 2026), centered on a community of immigrants, particularly Palestinian and Lebanese refugees, living i...

Roderick Deacey’s debut book is ap tly titled. As the poet says in an introductory note, “Birds flew into these poems, sometimes merely as a mention, sometimes just a feather or two, sometimes sw...

An interview with Amy Schmidt, author of Making the Scene: Theater on 14th Street in the 1980s  by Gregory Luce Anyone who lived in the Washington, D.C. area in the 1980s will remember the s...

An interview with Diana Rojas whose novel They Hold Grudges is a taut and compelling story of family, loyalty, and betrayal. Rojas introduces us to the joys of a large, tight-knit family—gatherin...

An interview with Stephanie Dupal, whose debut collection of short stories is The Kindness of Terrible People. Born in a small town in Quebec, Canada, Stephanie made her roundabout way to Woodbridge...

I'm a big fan of how technology, despite AI, despite a myriad of things we need to be very vigilant about and cognizant of, the landscape is radically different than it was when you and I were younger...

Three Days in June (Knopf, 2025) is a love letter to introverts, and to anyone who’s ever felt out of place at a party, a business meeting, or the hairdresser. In her twenty-fifth novel, Anne Tyler r...

Lauren D. Woods is the author of The Great Grown-Up Game of Make-Believe , the person behind the book vending machine LitBox, and the co-runner of the 804 Lit Salon. She was kind enough to chat with ...

In this collection, Gary uses formal poetry and vivid artistic imagery to transform fragmented memory into a coherent story of survival and healing. These forms provide a structure to memories that of...

ARTWIFE Magazine is a D.C. based literary journal founded by Hannah and Erica Harlee in 2022 accepting fiction, nonfiction, visual art, and video art. But it’s so much more than a journal. Hannah Harl...

The Sky will Hold is a book of survival, of second chances, of recovery and new beginnings. In this, her third full-length collection, Elizabeth Hazen explores loss and renewal, addiction and sobriety...

In the Folger Theatre’s world premiere of How Shakespeare Saved My Life, prolific stage and television actor Jacob-Ming-Trent not only delivers a powerful performance, but carries out a critically v...

Happy Pride to all our LGBTQ+ readers and allies! Once again, Washington Unbound is very happy to present our Pride booklist. This year’s compilation includes works of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, an...

As the 250 th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence nears, what better time for an exploration of its principal author’s moral core, as disclosed by his private life? Sally & Tom shine...

The Shakespeare Theatre’s current production presents us with a very different Othello than we might expect. The set is simple—no ducal palace or vast battlefield—and intimate, all the better to all...

Caroline Bock’s first novel for adults, The Other Beautiful People (Regal House 2026), is rich, layered, intellectually complex, and, yes, beautiful. Equal parts domestic fiction and workplace d...

The language in this fine collection is mostly straightforward, “daily” language, skillfully woven to have the rhythm, subtlety, and imagery of poetry. Many of the poems themselves reflect dailiness—f...

The vagaries of love—romantic, sexual, or platonic—are an eternal theme for poetry, but Katherine Gekker manages to bring fresh observations to the subject in her second collection, O My Charmer. By...

Chitra, of the eponymous Chitra Demands to Go Home is neither soft, wise, nor charmingly grumpy. I can’t say I love her for it—her personality is prickly without much to balance it out—but in th...

Happy Birthday to us! It has truly been a whirlwind year. When we first met to consider launching a publication devoted to all things literary in the DMV, we believed we would attract at least a modes...

Multiple traditions, immigrant roots, the hard labor of making a life in the United States, the joys and sorrows of family life: Agusto-Cox treats all of these and more in this remarkable book. For an...

D.C. area-based author Maria Karametou’s debut novel 'The Amalgam' was published by Vine Leaves in 2026. It explores immigration, family, and identity.

Two words I’d use to describe the poems in this collection—their language and imagery—are muscular and unexpected . By muscular I mean the words and images aren’t just substantial, they flex and ...

Two words I’d use to describe the poems in this collection—their language and imagery—are muscular and unexpected . By muscular I mean the words and images aren’t just substantial, they flex and ...

Displacement, memory, raising a child in a new country—these are some of the themes that Burgi Zenhausern treats in her first full length collection, White Door. The fact that these fine poems were ...

Do you need a break, but not too much of a break, from our political madness? The Folger Theatre, enacting the vision of Artistic Director Karen Ann Daniels, presents Shakespeare’s pastoral comedy As...

Jonetta Rose Barras is the kind of writer who inspires, both through her words and through her works. I had the pleasure of interviewing her about the MidnightRose reading series, a project she starte...

Bsrat Mezghebe’s debut novel, I Hope You Find What You’re Looking For (Liveright/Norton, 2026), is an affecting portrait of three Eritrean women living in Alexandria, Va in 1991, as their country’s ...

In her highly inventive story collection, The Church of Divine Electricity, Emily Mitchell explores the unsteady, shifting ground we stand on in a rapidly changing world. With keen insight, sharp-eyed...

At last, with his remarkable book No More Worlds to Conquer: The Black Poet in Washington, D.C., Brian Gilmore brings this rich history to life. D.C. native, attorney, and, above all, poet, Brian Gi...

In 'Nothing Up My Sleeve … Simple Deceptions for Curious Humans,' master illusionist and actor Dendy delivers a wondrous, multifaceted solo performance perfectly calibrated to confound your mind, tick...

Lauren Francis-Sharma’s novel 'Casualties of Truth' begins and ends in the United States, but alternates between 2018 D.C. and 1996 South Africa, when Prudence was an idealistic young law school stud...

Lauren Francis-Sharma’s novel 'Casualties of Truth' begins and ends in the United States, but alternates between 2018 D.C. and 1996 South Africa, when Prudence was an idealistic young law school stud...

Set against the zeitgeist of the Black Lives Matter movement and Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Eric F. Goldstein’s Taught serve s as a raw account of an education system in crisis. The book follows ...

Dear Subscribers and Friends of Washington Unbound,

True Blue , while o stensibly a journey through the pandemic, in fact ranges widely through interiors (both physical and mental), nature and cities, and memories in search of those consolations.

Washington Unbound is honored to present eminent D.C. poet, writer, and literary historian Kim Robetts’ In Memoriam list of DMV authors who passed away in 2025.  “I started including “In Memoria...