Mike Lankford, who was a finalist in the 2018 Oregon Book Awards and made the Wall Street Journal’s Top 10 Nonfiction Book list of 2017 with his work “Becoming Leonardo,” will discuss his book at 6 p.m. on Monday, May 21, at Central Oregon Community College’s (COCC) Coats Campus Center. This event, free and open to the public, is part of the COCC Foundation’s Nancy R. Chandler Visiting Scholar Program; seats can be reserved at eventbrite.com.
Dodging the well-trod path of scholarly da Vinci biographies, Lankford instead plants a unique view of the artist-inventor by writing with a perspective that’s partially steeped in the 15thcentury. The resulting “renegade biography,” as Lankford has described it, abandons agreed-upon narratives and offers fresh interpretations of da Vinci’s work journals.
Lankford has been a writing instructor at COCC since 2006. His memoir of being a white drummer in an African-American R&B band, “Life in Double Time,” was an Amazon editor’s pick and deemed best music book of the year by eight newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is currently working on a novel.
For information on the event, contact Charlotte Gilbride, Nancy R. Chandler Visiting Scholar Program coordinator, at 541-383-7257 or cgilbride@cocc.edu. In advance of college events, persons needing accommodation or transportation because of a physical or mobility disability, contact Joe Viola: 541-383-7775. For accommodation due to other disability, such as hearing impairment, contact the Office of Disability Services: 541-383-7743.