MINING THE PAST: “You learn more from reading than from reading books on writing.” That’s the strategy that Southlake author Suzanne Crowley says guided her to a successful career as a young-adult author. Her second book in the genre, The Stolen One, is set in Tudor England and was inspired by the many books she read on the time period as a teenager. She talks more about how she became interested in writing historical fiction in a story on dallasnews.com.

TALKING THE TALK: I’m was just getting caught up on my New York Times magazine from Sunday, which is why it’s taken me so long to link to this story about Jeff Dunham. These days, the Dallas-raised comic/ventriloquist is touring the country raking in the money (he sold $38 million worth of tickets last year alone). But like most comics, the big time came after years of playing everything from corporate events to Cub Scout meetings. If you’re trying to get your kids to read more, tell them that Dunham learned how to become a ventriloquist by checking out a book at the Dallas Public Library. Now he gets paid millions to ride on fancy buses and talk to puppets all day.

COUNTY CLASH: In most counties, one city sort of dominates the area. But Colin County has become an anomaly in recent years, with McKinney, Allen, Plano and Frisco all making claims to being the county seat, as it were. Those turf battles are pouring over into arguments about who has the best arts and entertainment venues, according to a dallasnews.com story today.

MUSIC BITS: Dylan Silvers of Dallas’ The Crash that Took Me talks about what we can expect on the band’s second album, Chlorine Colored Eyes, out this week (quickdfw.com) … If Simon & Garfunkel melodies mixed with Daft Punk beats sounds just crazy enough that you might be interested, look into Dallas’ Ishi (dfw.com) … How do you follow up a successful debut album? If you’re Dallas power-pop band Forever the Sickest Kids, you put out three more albums (quickdfw.com) … Denton act Peopleodian uses, among other things, a Nintendo DS to write its songs. That’s got to be worth at least one listen, right? (dallasobserver.com).