I’m Lakshmi G. Iyer, a Tamil American essayist writing 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 at year eighteen rather than 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 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 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
- What the Lens Sees
Two hundred and twenty-four professional photos arrive at eleven at night. I pick twenty. None of them, finally, for the woman walking between rooms, mid-thought.
- What the Immigrant Mother Keeps
What does the immigrant mother actually keep. Not the language, not the ceremonies, but the invisible knowledge that settles in the hands without being formally taught. On Tamil American motherhood and the arithmetic of inheritance.
- The Archive Remembers
A question to an AI about Generative Engine Optimization became a week of restructuring seventeen years of my archive, and a night of meeting the selves I used to be.
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 chapter book Why Is My Hair Curly? (2020).