LOCAL LIT: About a dozen years ago, Michael Ennis noticed a publishing trend: historical fiction was turning into a hot property. So he set out to write his own book in the genre – one featuring Machiavelli and Leonardo da Vinci as a pair of super sleuths in 16th Century Italy. The Malice of Fortune, which is out tomorrow, could turn the Dallas author into a bookselling beast. He talks to dallasnews.com about the process of researching the book and why he feels his setup is ironclad.

MILES AND MILES FOR MOZART: Dallas Opera general director and CEO Keith Cerny has been hitting the road this summer. About a month ago he was in New Mexico for the big Santa Fe Opera festival, and more recently he visited the U.K. for the Glyndebourne Festival. That got him thinking about the similarities and differences between the two heavy hitters, as well as some local connections to the fests, which he writes about in his latest Off the Cuff column for theaterjones.com.

TRAINING THE HORSE: Last week, Jerome reported on how the creators of War Horse are able to get the audience to buy into the giant horse puppet featured in the show, which opens at the AT&T Performing Arts Center on Wednesday. Before coming to town, the tour stopped in San Francisco, were the folks at Wired talked to some of the puppetmasters about the technical aspects of the show. The story and accompanying video are at wired.com.