I’m Lakshmi G. Iyer, a Tamil American 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.
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
- The Smudged Hyphen (2026). Essay collection on transracial adoption, Tamil American identity, and belonging.
- A Star Keeps Its Distance (2026). Novel following a K-pop music journalist.
- Hindsight (2024). Novel, set between Coimbatore and Pennsylvania.
- Why Is My Hair Curly? (2020). Middle-grade chapter book about identity and family.
Recent Essays
- Blossom: A Review
My pick for cdrama of the year: fantastic cast, tight pace, spectacular visuals, top-tier leads.
- My Troublesome Star: A Review
A delightful 12-episode drama that lets its older characters shine and refuses to airbrush its fifty-year-old lead.
- My Calorie Boy: A Review
An underrated high-school gem with rare nuance, for anyone who loved When I Fly Towards You or A River Runs Through It.
New here? Start here. More about me on the About page. To reach me, use the Contact page.