This weekend, the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas hosts a summertime fiesta that explores Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck’s connection to Mexico in his travels and writings (such as Log from the Sea of Cortez, The Pearl, and Tortilla Flat). Monterey County Herald.

On Saturday: Big Sur celebrates the publication of Ping•Pong, the Literary Magazine of the Henry Miller Library, which closed during the recent fires but has now re-opened.

NPR’s “Day to Day” is daydreaming California this summer, building an online list of must-read California lit, too. Browse here.

David Rensin, Malibu author of All for a Few Perfect Waves, makes his list of best surf books. Sunset blog.

Mary Roach, Bay Area author of Stiff, reviews Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us) for the NYT. She sez, “An alternate title for the book might be ‘Idiots.’”

SoCal writer Daniel Olivas publishes “How to Date a Flying Mexican” at Exquisite Corpse … while Mona Gable contributes an essay about refugee camps in Albania to the recent anthology, The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change.

An entry from The Urban Dictionary: “California: Best state ever. Makes every other state look like crap.”