This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Author Robert K. Massie to be Honored Tomorrow Night by the Hudson Valley Writers' Center

Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Robert Kinloch Massie, an Irvington resident, will be honored on Thursday, October 3 by the Hudson Valley Writers’ Centerat its Silver Anniversary Celebration. 

Also to be recognized at this event at Abigail Kirsch's Tappan Hill Mansion in Tarrytown will be two other literary world figures: Stephen Apkon and Delauné Michel.

Massie won a Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for his biography: "Peter the Great: His Life and World," a book that took him 12 years to complete. In this book, he relates how Peter the Great, crowned co-tsar at the age of ten, transformed Russia, built a powerful army and navy and fell in love with Catherine the Great.

Massie is a Rhodes scholar and the recipient of the 2012 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction for "Catherine the Great." 

Another of his books, "The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, Nicholas and Alexandra," was made into a motion picture. 

He also wrote two books about warships: "Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War" and "Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea" and he served as president of the Author’s Guild from 1987 to 1991.

Massie was born in Lexington, Kentucky in 1929 and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied history at Yale and subsequently at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. He spent more than four years in the navy and worked at two major magazines:Newsweek and the Saturday Evening Post. He also taught history at Princeton University. He has four daughters and two sons.

Stephen Apkon and Delauné Michel to be honored

Another honoree at the Silver Anniversary Celebration will be Stephen Apkon, author of "The Age of the Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens." See Patch article "The Hudson Valley Writers' Center to Honor Stephen Apkon, Jacob Burns Film Center Founder." 

In addition, Delauné Michel will be recognized for her contributions to literary awareness. See Patch article “The Hudson Valley Writers’ Center to Salute Achievements of Spoken Interludes Founder Delauné Michel." 

Tickets for this event cost $250 per person, all but $50 of which is tax-deductible. The price includes the open-bar reception, participation in all scheduled events of the evening, dinner and both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.

Tappan Hill Mansion, where Mark Twain once lived, is secluded on a picturesque estate at 81 Highland Avenue (GPS address: 200 Gunpowder Lane), Tarrytown, 914-631-3030, www.abigailkirsch.com

The Hudson Valley Writer’s Center is a nonprofit organization headquartered at 300 Riverside Drive, Sleepy Hollow (at the Phillipse Manor Metro-North train station). For more information about the dinner or the center, call 914-332-5953 or visit website: www.writerscenter.org

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?