Lakshmi Iyer writes creative nonfiction and fiction from southeastern Pennsylvania.
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.
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 holds a certificate in creative writing from The Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University.
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Recent Essays
- Desi Parents Adopting: What I Typed Into Google in 2009In 2009 I searched Google for “desis adopting non Indian babies” and got nothing. Here’s what I wish I’d found.
- Through the DoorMy daughter was in the shower. The sentence that arrived before I was fully awake was: this is my child, but I don’t know her. A reflective essay on the week my daughters began to feel like strangers, and what my own mother said when I asked her the same question.
- What You Take OutRevision is not a stage. In the writing I care about, it is the work itself.