Lakshmi G. Iyer

Children's Author. Novelist. Essayist.

Work and Worth

The earliest entries here were written around a workday: on the train into Philadelphia, at a desk between meetings, in the minutes before the children woke. Banking paid the bills then. The writing lived in the margins, and most of it was about the job itself. The commute. The cubicle. The performance review.

In September 2012, I quit. You can watch it happen in these pages: the restlessness, the leap, the strange first Monday at home. The years after asked their own questions. Who am I without a business card? If no one pays for my day, does it count? What do I want my daughters to learn about ambition?

Fourteen years of writing sit below: the MBA semesters, the quitting, the staying home, the slow finding of other work worth doing. I did not know I was telling one story. It reads like one now.

Start at the top for the office years. The chronology carries the argument.

The Office Years (2009–2012)

The Leap (2012–2014)

The Years at Home (2015–2017)

Worth, Reconsidered (2018–2023)