Joe Lapp was born in 1974 at Freedmans Hospital in Washington, DC and came home to Kenilworth, a neighborhood in the corner of Northeast DC that is east of the Anacostia River. His parents, Elmer and Fannie Lapp, had moved to the neighborhood from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1965 to start an Amish-Mennonite mission and church called Fellowship Haven. He is the youngest of five children.

During his youth, his family moved back and forth several times between urban Kenilworth and rural Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Growing up between cultures — rural and urban, white and black, Amish-Mennonite and African American — Joe learned to adapt to worlds that seem much farther apart than the familiar two hour car trip between Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC.

After completing high school in the DC area he studied aviation maintenance for two years at LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas.  Disenchanted with airplanes, he returned to DC and worked variously in a hardware store and lumber yard, as a building manager for a church on Capitol Hill, and as a catering waiter.

Deciding to reenter school as an English major, Joe attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At Calvin he played club volleyball, resided in and served as Resident Assistant for an intentionally multicultural dorm community, and worked with the college chapel program coordinator. His senior year he spent the fall semester in Oxford at an independent honor's program affiliated with Keble College; back in Grand Rapids he served as an informal coordinator for an arts-focused group house. In his studies at Calvin he focused on literature and poetry and completed an honors thesis in creative writing. He also experimented with performance art, installation, and other forms of public artistic expression.

Joe graduated from Calvin College in 2001 with a B.A. in English and a minor in Performance Studies. After graduation he volunteered for a year with AmeriCorps in an elementary school in San Francisco, California and completed a three month, 5,000 mile bicycle ride across the United States and down the west coast.

Though his parents had retired to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a year earlier, in February of 2003 Joe returned to Washington, DC, once again living in the Kenilworth neighborhood.  His idea to discover some of the history of the neighborhood and record some of his family’s stories became The Kenilworth Project, an attempt to find, document, preserve, and creatively write the story of the Kenilworth area, the Fellowship Haven Church, and the Lapp family’s experiences with the church and the neighborhood.

Supporting himself by working as a catering waiter, Joe also became active in the Kenilworth community, forming ties with various groups working to improve and promote the neighborhoods and parkland in and around Kenilworth and the larger Far Northeast area.  He also wrote and published Kenilworth-focused poetry and essays, worked creatively with photography, and began to create found object art assemblages and installations.

In February of 2006 Joe published a 32 page booklet about Kenilworth history with the help of a grant from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC, also coordinating a community history event to celebrate this publication.  In July of 2006 he donated a thirty-plus interview oral history project, along with supporting materials from his history research, to the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Public Library in downtown DC.

Since September of 2006 Joe has lived in Pakistan, where he is focusing on writing and other creative work.  In the spring of 2007 his "Fleeting View" column, featuring an American's take on Islamabad life, ran for eight weeks in Dawn, a Pakistani English-language newspaper.  His Kenilworth history project continues in the form of a "Kenilworth Stories" website, and an essay on Kenilworth will be published in a book on DC neighborhoods due out late in 2007. 

Curriculum Vitae

Joseph E. Lapp

1405 K Street SE
Washington DC 20003
(permanent US address) 

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

www.lappjoe.com

(202) 607-1768 (USA)

education

B.A. in English at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI, with a  minor in Performance (performance art), graduated with honors May 2001

Semester of English literature and history study in England with an off-campus honors program affiliated with Keble College, Oxford, fall 2000

Creative nonfiction writing class at the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland (Fall 2003)

independent projects

“The Kenilworth Project,” a three year effort to research and write about the history, as well as document the present, of the Kenilworth neighborhood located in Northeast Washington, DC, including conducting a 40+ interviewee oral history project and building an extensive collection of news articles and photos related to the neighborhood, spring 2003 to summer 2006

published works

poetry

various in Calvin College student publications, 1999 - 2001

“The Wise and the Foolish Build,” Divided City, Issue 2, Spring 2005

“Home City Home,” June 9, 2005 issue of Sojo Mail, a weekly email-zine of spirituality, politics, and culture published by Sojourners Magazine (176,000 readers)

“Kenilworth Praise Hymn,” Divided City, late summer 2005 

“The War From This Side of the Anacostia River, Kenilworth, DC,” Beltway Poetry Quarterly’s The Wartime Issue, spring 2006

“Buddha At the Lily Ponds,” East of the River, June 2006

“Turning Over the Corpse,” Beltway Poetry Quarterly’s DC Places issue, summer 2006

essays

“Wild In the Streets,” Washington Post, Outlook (opinion) section, February 8, 2004 

“The Siren Call of Disaster at Our Door,” Washington Post, District Weekly section, February 12, 2004

“Where a Puddle Persists, Lotuses Bloom,” Washington Post, District Weekly section, October 27, 2005

“Kenilworth: a Northeast Neighborhood by the Anacostia River,” East of the River, November, 2005

“Working With Your Hands?” Divided City, spring 2006

“The Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens: Loving Ward 7’s Wetlands Park,” East of the River, June 2006

“Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Dodge Caravan,” Washington City Paper cover story, November 17, 2006 

booklet

Kenilworth: A DC Neighborhood By the Anacostia River, a 32-page, two-color, offset-press booklet self-published (distribution of 1,300) with grant funding from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC as well as other community support, featuring text and pictures highlighting the full scope of Kenilworth area history from the American Indian era to the present, February 2006c

Second printing of the above booklet in September of 2006 (distribution of 1,600) funded by a grant from the DC Office of Historic Preservation and administered by the Humanities Council of Washington, DC

columns

Eight week run of the “Fleeting View” column, short pieces looking at some aspect of Islamabad life from my American perspective, published in the Saturday edition of Dawn, a Pakistani English-language newspaper, during the months of March and April 2007; included original photography
 

visual art

“Guns to flowers: A graffiti mural modification” featured in the October 6, 2006 issue of the online Catapult Magazine

“Unto us: Stories from personal and family history told through the art of two manger scenes” featured in the December 15, 2006 issue of the online Catapult Magazine

Personal photography of Islamabad sights featured in an eight-week run of my “Fleeting View” column appearing in the Pakistani English-language newspaper Dawn, March and April 2007 

performances and installations

created and performed a series of live art/installation pieces in a Calvin College dorm lobby highlighting various social issues relating to the college experience, March 1999

created, co-choreographed, and performed in a dance combining movement, music and spoken poetry presented as part of a Calvin College student dance festival, Spring 2000

performed a series of live art/installation pieces on the Calvin College commons lawn highlighting steps in a personal faith journey, May 2001

presented the “Memorial to End All Memorials,” a stuffed-animal sidewalk installation highlighting the need to end violence and murder, in Kenilworth and several other DC venues, summer 2002
 

readings

featured reader in a series of home-based literary evenings organized by friends, February 27, 2004

read creative writing about Kenilworth in self-organized event focusing on neighborhood history, Washington, DC, March 2004

featured reader in an evening of poetry and music organized by several churches in Washington, DC, September 4, 2004

featured reader in Beltway Poetry Quarterly’s wartime issue reading at Busboys and Poets, Washington, DC, April 16, 2006

presentations and events

display of Kenilworth history posters at several Kenilworth, DC area community events summer of 2004

“Of Urban Plantations and the Rural Amish: Ms. Kimi Gray and Mr. Elmer Lapp in Kenilworth,” a lecture presented at the April, 2005 meeting of the NE D.C. Historical Society

neighborhood history talk given as part of the April, 2005 Earth Day celebration at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

Neighborhood history talk to youth in the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization’s “Discover the Anacostia” Summer Youth Program, June 2005

exhibit featuring Walter McDowney, local hero and former Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens park interpreter, displayed and a neighborhood walking tour conducted as part of the July, 2005 Water Lily Festival at the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens

neighborhood history talk to the Seniors group at Kenilworth-Parkside Recreation Center, July 2005

led group of young adults in a job skills training program on a tour of Eastland Gardens, Kenilworth, and Kenilworth Park/Anacostia River for Covenant House Artisans Woodshop, September 2005

led twenty-five attendees on an hour and a half long walking tour of the Kenilworth neighborhood as part of Cultural Tourism DC’s “Walkingtown DC,” October 2005

for the release of the Kenilworth booklet, coordinated and moderated a two-hour long Kenilworth community history celebration in the Kenilworth neighborhood that was attended by over 75 people and featured displays of historic photos and community members sharing their own stories of the neighborhood and the area, February 18, 2006

gave an hour-long talk on Kenilworth neighborhood history at the Smithsonian’s Anacostia Museum as part of their regular neighborhood history lecture series, February 21, 2006

short talk on The Kenilworth Project and on Kenilworth area history to DC area Kiwanis group, March 2006

publicity

The Kenilworth Project and Joe Lapp featured in East of the River, April, 2004

“Kenilworth, Discovering the Legacy Within,” an article by Michelle McKeithan about the Kenilworth history booklet, appeared in East of the River, March 2006

writing and history work featured on various DC community and arts-focused blogs and websites 

grants

small grant from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC, to write and publish 1,300 copies of a 32 page booklet on the history of the Kenilworth neighborhood located in Northeast DC, with non-profit sponsorship by Cultural Tourism DC, awarded October 2005 and completed February 2006

small grant from the DC Office of Historic Preservation, administered through the Humanities Council of Washington, DC, for a second printing of the above booklet, distribution 1,600, September 2006 

awards

various English Department scholarships and awards at Calvin College, including the William B. Eerdmans Literary Award (spring 2001) for outstanding creative writing by a graduating senior

Kenilworth history booklet nominated for a Mayor’s Historic Preservation Award in Washington, DC, spring 2006