I’m Lakshmi G. Iyer, a Tamil American children’s book author, novelist, and essayist. I write about open transracial adoption from a side the shelf usually skips: the Indian American adoptive parent. I’m a brown mother raising white children, in contact with both birth families since 2010, and most of what I write begins in that gap between how a family looks and what it carries.
As heard on NPR’s The Takeaway and BBC Asia · In The Hindu and Huffington Post · Subject of Love Chaos Kin (2025)
New · Middle Grade · Out July 20, 2026
Why Is My Skin Brown?
Sarayu is twelve, American-born, and about to spend four months with cousins in Bengaluru, which has its own ideas about her skin.
From Red Panda / Westland Books.
Where to Begin
- Transracial Adoption & Parenting: sixteen years of raising children across color lines, from the adoptive parent’s side.
- Indian American Adoptive Parent: the brown mother’s side of transracial adoption, a lane almost no one writes from.
- Indian American Identity: Tamil American life in the diaspora, and the work of living inside the hyphen.
- All Essays: the full archive, by thread.
Books
Why Is My Skin Brown? · 2026
Why Is My Hair Curly? · 2020
The Smudged Hyphen · 2026
A Star Keeps Its Distance · 2026
Hindsight · 2024
Recent Essays
- Who Should Tell These Stories?
We inch our way through the dark aisles of the Movie Tavern, navigating to our assigned seats. This is one of the newer chains near… Read more: Who Should Tell These Stories?
- I Am Really Good At Losing People
When I was little, I lost people because I moved. I moved because my parents moved. Each year, I would start at a new place,… Read more: I Am Really Good At Losing People
- Just Adopt!
“I’ve always wanted to adopt,” says my friend, a faraway look in her eyes as if there exists an alternate universe she is privy to… Read more: Just Adopt!
Bring the film to your city
Love Chaos Kin, the feature documentary about my family, is booking theaters by demand. If enough people near you want to see it, director Chithra Jeyaram can book a local screening. Tell us where you are and help fill a theater.
New here? Start here. More about me on the About page. To reach me, use the Contact page.