Portrait of author in Chennai, India by Jayashree Sahithya
On Substack
New Essay on The Long Road Home
This return to India has been less a trip and more a reckoning. In the span of a few months — solo parenting, ancestral pilgrimages, creative milestones, partnership upheaval, and my 44th birthday — I have been undone and remade again. From depositing my book in Chennai’s Connemara Library to lighting the lamp on Alikhan Street with my daughter, this journey has braided lineage, motherhood, and becoming into one living thread. I am reminded that tending our ancestors is an act of devotion, repair, and fierce love. I leave changed, steadied by the thousand unseen hands that lift me when I cannot lift myself.
Read it now on The Long Road Home.
New Paid Subscriber Series on Substack
WHERE YAMUNA FLOWS:
Dispatches from the heart of India
Where Yamuna Flows, my new paid Substack series, launches December 3 as I travel across India with my family and navigate the wild, wondrous world of self-publishing and marketing my forthcoming poetry book.
This series is a deeper, more intimate companion to The Long Road Home—a place for behind-the-scenes storytelling, creative process notes, audio essays, and reflections on ancestry, craft, motherhood, and the diasporic journey. If you want to walk with me as the words take shape in real time, I’d be honored to have you there.
Storytelling For self-exploration
for the curious wanderer
read
a popular photo essay from india
ritual head shaving
Portrait of author in Chennai, India by Jayashree Sahithya
Meet Yamuna Flaherty
WRITER, MOTHER + STORYKEEPER
Yamuna Flaherty is a writer, mother and storykeeper devoted to helping others uncover and tell the stories that matter most. Rooted in two decades of global travel, inner inquiry, and creative practice, Yamuna weaves memoir, ancestral reflection, and soulful expression into everything she offers—from guided storytelling sessions to thoughtful essays and creative tools. Her work invites others to explore identity, voice, and belonging through the transformative power of personal narrative. Whether through one-on-one sessions, workshops, or her Substack, The Long Road Home, Yamuna creates spaces for meaningful connection and self-authored truth.
