Lakshmi G. Iyer is a Tamil American novelist, essayist, and children's book author writing about open transracial adoption from the Indian American adoptive-parent side, motherhood, identity, and belonging. Her books include the essay collection The Smudged Hyphen (2026), the novels Hindsight (2024) and A Star Keeps Its Distance (2026), and the middle-grade Why Is My Hair Curly? (Westland/Red Panda, 2020) and its companion Why Is My Skin Brown? (Red Panda/Westland, 2026). Her essays and reporting have appeared in The Hindu, Huffington Post, Motherwell Magazine, Adoptive Families, The Week India, Verve India, and Mutha Magazine, among others. She has spoken on transracial adoption and South Asian American life on NPR's The Takeaway, BBC Asia Big Debate, and BBC Radio UK, and at CAAMFest, the Prabha Khaitan Foundation, and Oxford Book Stores. She lives in Exton, Pennsylvania, with her husband and three children. Find her at lgiyer.com and on Substack at lgiyer.substack.com.
