AUTHOR, AUTHOR: The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference has released its schedule for July 19-21, and it looks like return visits for Susan Orlean, author of Rin Tin Tin — she was a keynote speaker back in 2005 — and Hampton Sides (Hellhound on His Trail), who did the duties in 2006 . Skip Hollandsworth, local journalist-turned-screenwriter (Bernie), will join Orlean as a keynote speaker, but the reporter who may have the best dirt to dish is Stephen Rodrick, who back in January wrote the NYTimes’ eyebrow-raising account of  the complete car wreck that happened when Lindsay Lohan met a porn star and director Paul Schrader on the set of The Canyons.

WE ARE THE STUFFED MEN, HEADPIECES FILLED WITH STRAW:  With Theatre 3 announcing the return of Avenue Q later this month — and with Handspring, the puppet geniuses behind War Horse, set to open A Midsummer Night’s Dream in London —  it’s time to consider the history of puppets and why we’re still enthralled by socks and strings and sticks coming alive. Lucinda Everett in the London Telegraph obliges.

BITS AND PIECES: Colette Copeland reviews the Fort Worth Modern’s Focus show on Nigerian-British artist Yinka Shonibare for Glasstire. Colorful batik fabric may not be ‘authentically’ African but he knows how to use it … For the Star-Telegram, Mark Lowry writes about the ‘repetitors,’ ‘stagers’ and ‘choreologists,’ the people who worked to maintain the integrity of dances being performed by Texas Ballet Theater in Bass Hall this weekend in the program, Lambarena, Voluntaries and More!