Becoming Ammi: A Queer, Desi Journey Into Parenthood

By Neema Avashia

From the award-winning author of Another Appalachia, an intimate portrait of queer motherhood and mother-loss--with meditations on grief, familial legacies, and selfhood

In Becoming Ammi, author and educator Neema Avashia reflects on a new stage of her life:  becoming a parent.

Through short reflective chapters, Avashia weaves together stories of early motherhood as a Desi, queer, Appalachian, and non-gestational parent (a parent who did not physically carry or give birth to the child). 

Becoming Ammi is shaped by Avashia's real-time reflections written like diary entries--some fully formed, written during the quiet of 3 a.m. feedings, while others are fragmented, scribbled down in the small moments she could carve out each day. Together, the essays culminate into a deeply personal meditation on her transforming sense of self.

Written in three parts, the book explores: Neema's new relationship with her daughterQuestions of integrating her old life into her new oneBecoming a mother while losing her ownIntimate and candid, Avashia's story will speak to anyone who does not feel like they fit into the traditional framework of "parent."

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807028878
• ISBN13: 9780807028872
• Release Date: April 2027
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.