Lakshmi G. Iyer is a Tamil American essayist, memoirist, and author based in southeastern Pennsylvania. She writes creative nonfiction and fiction about transracial adoption, Tamil American identity, motherhood across cultures, and belonging.
Her essay collection The Smudged Hyphen (2026) traces the arc of a transracial adoptive family through questions of identity, race, and belonging. Her novels A Star Keeps Its Distance and Hindsight, and her children’s book Why Is My Hair Curly?, are available wherever books are sold.
Her family’s story is the subject of the feature documentary Love Chaos Kin (2025), directed by Chithra Jeyaram. She is at work on a memoir, The Color of Kin.
Her writing has appeared in The Hindu, Verve India, Motherwell Magazine, Adoptive Families, and PopSugar. She has been featured on NPR’s The Takeaway and BBC Asia.
She attended the Yale Writers’ Workshop in 2018 and holds a certificate in creative writing from The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University.
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What I Write About
- Transracial adoption, from the adoptive parent’s side
- Tamil American identity and life in the diaspora
- Motherhood across cultures and color lines
- The refusal to translate: writing that lets non-English words stand without a gloss
- Belonging, and the work of building a life inside the hyphen
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 novel about identity and family.
- The Color of Kin. Memoir, in progress.
Where I’ve Appeared
Broadcast: NPR’s The Takeaway · BBC Asia · BBC Radio UK · LAJA TV
Print & Online: The Hindu · The Week India · Huffington Post · Adoptive Families · Motherwell Magazine · Verve India · PopSugar · Indian Express · Financial Express
Film & Festivals: Love Chaos Kin (2025, dir. Chithra Jeyaram) · CAAMFest 2025 · Prabha Khaitan Foundation · Oxford Book Stores
Recent Essays
- Teaching the Kaapi
When nothing is genetic, what do immigrant mothers pass down? On kaapi, Tamil American motherhood, and the slow sediment of a life being observed.
- Whose Tongues Come First
A ParentSquare notification arrives in Tamil and the dropdown to switch is buried four screens down. An essay on mother tongue, colonial inheritance, and the joy of learning Korean in my fifties.
- The Refusal to Translate
A response to the argument that every major Indian writer lives abroad and writes from memory. The real variable isn’t geography. It’s whether the publishing chain between you and the reader lets you keep the sentence intact.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Lakshmi Iyer?
Lakshmi G. Iyer is a Tamil American essayist, memoirist, and author based in southeastern Pennsylvania. She writes about transracial adoption, Tamil American identity, motherhood across cultures, and belonging. Her essay collection The Smudged Hyphen was published in 2026.
What does she write about?
Her work centers transracial adoption from the adoptive parent’s side, Tamil American identity and diaspora life, motherhood across color lines, and what she calls the refusal to translate. She writes both creative nonfiction and fiction.
Where can I read her essays?
Her essays are collected on the Essays page and gathered in The Smudged Hyphen (2026). She also sends a monthly letter on Substack.
What books has she published?
The Smudged Hyphen (2026, essays), A Star Keeps Its Distance (2026, novel), Hindsight (2024, novel), and the middle-grade novel Why Is My Hair Curly? (2020). She is at work on a memoir, The Color of Kin.