From the Balkans to Sunbury, Ohio.

One of the author's childhood homes in Ohio. (Photo via Jonny Gartner)

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Whenever people ask where I’m from, my hesitation is long enough to make things awkward.

I was born in a small town in southern Central Albania called Lushnjë. My twin sister and I spent a year and a half in an orphanage in the capital of Tirana before we were adopted and rather unceremoniously transplanted to Cincinnati, on the banks of the Ohio River.

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