About the Book: Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa knows a thing or two about telling a story. From her experience on stages and in front of live and television audiences, she now offers us her first book. Sukhjit reflects on her own experience as a Sikh-Australian woman, performing it against a backdrop of comfort and calamity: how we live our lives in a messy and multi-layered society.

Using the staging of meals as her mode, Sukhjit explores presumptions and the nuances of all that we can bring to the table. She plays with the etiquette of what is carried into public arenas and what stays in our private worlds: our aspirations and heritage, and all our baggage. There are no exclusionary zones for this courageous, passionate, irreverent, and very funny, writer.­

About the Author: Sukhjit Kaur Khalsa is a writer, performer, theatre-maker, filmmaker, and producer based in Boorloo. Her work as a multi-form artist for the last ten years has been recognised at the Performing Arts WA Awards (2020), Mona Brand Writing Awards (2022), WA Multicultural Awards (2022) and Young Australian Sikh of the Year (2023). Her passion for storytelling began as a finalist in the Australian Poetry Slam (2014), semi-finalist on Australia’s Got Talent (2016) and winner of The Moth Grand Slam (2019).

Sukhjit premiered her sell-out theatre work Fully Sikh with Barking Gecko Theatre Company and Black Swan Theatre Company (2019). Since then, she has been developing her comedy series What Would Suki Do? with support from ABC TV, and is currently producing A Hairy Tale, a documentary exploring female body hair. Sukhjit presented at Tedx UWA (2017), Tedx Newtown (2019) and has supported Missy Higgins and L-Fresh the Lion on their national tours. Her poetry and community arts projects have led her to tour globally and across her nation.

Sukhjit and her partner, Perun Bonser, were selected to develop their rom-com series One of the Good Ones at Ron Howard & Brian Grazer’s talent lab, Impact Australia (2020). They premiered their video installation work Between Breaths at Goolugatup Heathcote Art Gallery (2022), and the work toured in 4A Contemporary Asian Art Centre’s Bush Diwan (2022-23). Sukhjit worked as a story-telling trainer at the Centre for Stories and has produced storytelling and theatre projects for adults and school students. Collectables, her debut hip-hop single, is now streaming on all platforms.

Sukhjit is currently the Executive Director of The Blue Room Theatre in Perth/Boorloo.

ISBN: 978-0-6459840-6-4

Cover artwork: Cover photograph by Belinda Carter. Garment by Sheridan Joyce of Skylark the Label.