Explore both Leonardo da Vinci's limitations, and his extraordinary gifts.

Bend author Michael Lankford explores Leonardo da Vinci in this presentation based on Lankford's new book "Becoming Leonardo--an Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci."

How it is we know Leonardo? Discover the real evidence and the actual man who emerges once we take a new look at one of history's most enigmatic and brilliant men.

"Becoming Leonardo" reveals what it was like to live in the 15th century, and da Vinci's life as a social outsider.

Lankford, who joined COCC in 2006 and has taught creative writing, creative nonfiction and academic composition as a part-time instructor for the college, has been fascinated with da Vinci since high school. His habit of exhaustively reading material by and about one particular individual—which started at age 20 when he lived in a remote Oklahoma farmhouse and was consumed with Tolstoy—doesn't normally lead to writing a book of his own, he admitted. A biography he read on da Vinci some five years ago changed that. "Becoming Leonardo" is a Wall Street Journal 2017 Book of the Year A Spectator (UK) 2017 Book of the Year.

Books for sale, Q&A to follow.