LOOKING SOUTH OUT WEST: Fort Worth is about to get its Latin Music fix with a pair of festivals specializing in the music of Central and South America. TCU’s Latin American Music Festival begins on Friday, which will be followed by Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Music Director Miguel Harth-Bedoya’s Caminos del Inka series the following week. And the audiences aren’t the only ones who will benefit. “It is very important for students to get to know other ways of making music,” German Gutierrez, who coordinates the TCU festival, tells dfw.com. “All of those rhythms are not the ones that they usually play; young people have a hard time playing bambucos and sambas. Our students get to work with Latin-American artists. It’s an enriching experience.” To learn more about the FWSO program, be sure to watch Think on Channel 13 on Friday, when Harth-Bedoya is one of the guests.

TOUGH TOPICS: “My thought process was, ‘If I could go back and hand myself a book, what would it be?’ ” That’s how Dallas author Bill Cochran approaches the books he writes for children, he tells dallasnews.com. One of his books, My Parents Are Divorced, My Elbows Have Nicknames, and Other Facts About Me, helps kids when their parents split. He has first hand knowledge there, both as a child of divorced parents and after going through his own divorce. Another is titled The Forever Dog and deals with the pain that comes from the death of a pet.

RECENT THEATER REVIEWS: Lawson Taitte says Stage West’s Good Things needs a few trims to cut to the choice bits (dallasnews.com) … Mark Lowry calls the terrorism drama Empty Room, playing at Ochre House, “the tightest and finest piece of theater Balanced Almond has created to date.” (theaterjones.com) … Opinion is split on Second Thought Theatre’s A Lie of the Mind. Alexandra Bonifield says that, “the company rises to the occasion,” of Sam Shepard’s difficult play, “with style, grit and relish.” (Critical Rant and Rave). Lowry’s not so sure. “Despite a few amazing performances … it never achieves a sense of cohesion,” he writes. (theaterjones.com).