Writer, Artist and Resident of ‘Lesser L.A.’

Although writer Sandra Tsing Loh was born in Newport Beach and raised in Malibu, she spent summers in Egypt, Brazil and other places she remembers as more stressful than exotic. Accounts of brushes with terrorists are typical of her tales of travels with her eccentric family.

But it’s the San Fernando Valley that captures Loh’s imagination. For four years, the 35-year-old Van Nuys resident wrote a regular column about the Valley for trendy Buzz magazine. Past columns have been compiled in her first book, “Depth Takes a Holiday: Essays From Lesser Los Angeles.”

In her often sardonic but never mean-spirited style, Loh describes the Valley as “the second act in people’s lives,” a place populated by “people who never make the party list.”

She hopes it never secedes. “Then we can always remain the downtrodden country mouse to L.A.’s city mouse, and that’s always grist for my mill.”

Loh is also a performance artist. A memorable piece was “Night of the Grunion”--she hired the Topanga Symphony to serenade the fish at midnight in Malibu.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and literature from Caltech--her father insisted that his children have something to fall back on--and a master’s in English from USC.

Her autobiographical pieces, such as “My Father’s Chinese Wives,” have been recorded, and other works have been presented at New York’s Second State Theater.

Loh’s commentaries can be heard on National Public Radio, and another book, “Aliens in America,” will be published by Riverhead this year.