Loyola Alum and Author Mike Miley to Discuss New Book Celebrating the Late David Lynch with Film Students

NEW ORLEANS – Author Mike Miley will discuss his new book about the late director David Lynch when he meets with students in Loyola’s Filmmaking program next week.

Miley, a 2001 Loyola graduate, will introduce a screening of one of Lynch’s most popular films, “Wild at Heart,” and participate in a question-and-answer session with students March 19 at 5 p.m. in the J. Michael Early Studio, on the fourth floor of the Communications/Music Building at Loyola. The event is free and open to the public.

Miley, who previously taught film studies and directing classes at Loyola, just published his new book, “David Lynch’s American Dreamscape: Music, Literature, Cinema,” which explores how Lynch’s work engages with literary and musical works that have shaped the American imagination. Lynch died in January at the age of 78.

“With the recent passing of David Lynch, one of film's most unique voices, we feel fortunate indeed to have Mike Miley come and regale our students about the methodology and mentality behind Lynch's potent American dreamscapes,” said Miles Doleac, chair of the Filmmaking department at Loyola. “He is a true-blue expert on the man and his storytelling.”

Miley, who currently teaches English and film at Metairie Park Country Day School in Metairie, said when educators speak to young filmmakers, they always encourage them to find and cultivate their own voice.

“David Lynch is the epitome of a filmmaker who developed a singular voice across 50 years of filmmaking, so much so that the word ‘Lynchian’ was added to the ‘Oxford English Dictionary’ in 2018,” Miley said. “Studying a filmmaker as singular as Lynch gives students a role model to emulate, not mimic, as they develop a cinematic voice that is equally unique and theirs as Lynch's was his own.”