I’m Lakshmi G. Iyer, a Tamil American children’s book author, novelist, and essayist. I write about open transracial adoption from the Indian American adoptive parent side. I’m a brown mother raising white children, in contact with both birth families since 2010. My essays press on the money silence, the reverse gaze, and what birth family relationships in open adoption look like sixteen years in rather than in year one. I write at lgiyer.com and at Belonging, Mostly. My books include The Smudged Hyphen, Why Is My Hair Curly?, Why Is My Skin Brown?, and A Star Keeps Its Distance.
My essay collection The Smudged Hyphen (2026) traces the arc of a transracial adoptive family through questions of identity, race, and belonging. My novels A Star Keeps Its Distance and Hindsight, and my children’s book Why Is My Hair Curly?, are available wherever books are sold.
My family’s story is the subject of the feature documentary Love Chaos Kin (2025), directed by Chithra Jeyaram.
My writing has appeared in The Hindu, Verve India, Motherwell Magazine, Adoptive Families, and PopSugar. I’ve been featured on NPR’s The Takeaway and BBC Asia.
I attended the Yale Writers’ Workshop in 2018 and hold 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 making a home on the hyphen
Books
- Why Is My Skin Brown? (2026). Middle-grade novel about colorism, identity, and belonging, set between Pennsylvania and Bengaluru. Out July 20 from Red Panda / Westland.
- 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.
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
- Mostly, It Is For Me
I stare at the items in my Amazon cart: a pair of leather sandals, dark chocolate bark with nuts, a bag of sea salt caramels.… Read more: Mostly, It Is For Me
- In Conversation with The Indian Book Club
The Indian Book Club sent me fifteen questions about Why Is My Skin Brown?, and answering them turned into one of the more honest conversations… Read more: In Conversation with The Indian Book Club
- The Skin I Grew Up In
My essay in The Indian Express, for the She Said column: colourism, a paati’s first word for my daughter, and the systems we fight that live inside us.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Lakshmi Iyer?
Lakshmi G. Iyer is a Tamil American children’s book author, novelist, and essayist 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 chapter books Why Is My Hair Curly? (2020) and Why Is My Skin Brown? (2026, Red Panda/Westland).
Does Lakshmi use AI in her writing?
Yes, openly, since March 2026. The blog essays are a mix. The pieces from March to mid July 2026 lean hardest on Claude: I dictated them and shaped them with the tool. Since then, I write most of them straight through myself. Every piece is revised and signed off by me. The books, including the Smudged Hyphen essays, I write by hand, with Claude as a sounding board, never a ghostwriter. The full statement is on its own page: How I make this.