In this episode, Ledia reflects on writing in English as an Albanian author, and on the uncertainties and freedoms that come with choosing a second language.

We talk about interpretation as both a literary practice and a way of living, about insecurity and voice, and about how the idea of home shifts over time.

An award-winning author, theatre artist and spoken word poet, Dr. Cristina A. Bejan has published books in all of her genres (history, poetry, playwriting). Her plays have been performed in 4 countries and her hit play DISTRICTLAND was bought for TV development. She has appeared as an expert on A&E's The History Channel, C-SPAN, and multiple Romanian TV channels. Her work has been featured in the Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, Foreign Policy, Libertatea and ELLE Romania magazine ... among many more print and audio outlets. In NYC she has performed at La MaMA Experimental Theatre Club and launched 5 published plays at The Drama Book Shop. Bejan is the only Rhodes Scholar (since the establishment of the scholarship in 1903) to hold Romanian citizenship and the recipient of the the George Parkin Distinguished Service Award 2025 (Rhodes Trust). She earned her Masters and PhD at the University of Oxford, fully funded by merit-based Rhodes and Fulbright scholarships and many grants. Bejan is also the Executive Director of Bucharest Inside the Beltway, a multicultural arts & culture platform that she co-founded in 2014 to promote local and international inclusive voices in the arts. She is currently working on a number of writing projects while auditing classes at the Sorbonne.

In this conversation, Cristina reflects on Romanian identity and on the tension between sentiment and practicality that runs through both the culture and the language.

We talk about her evolving relationship to Romanian, the weight of national narratives, and what it means to move from emotional inheritance toward conscious choice.

The poem we mention during the interview is part of the book Green Horses on the Wall: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/green-horses-on-the-walls-by-cristina-a-bejan/

Daniel Peña is a Pushcart Prize-winning writer and Associate Professor at the University of North Texas where he teaches in the PhD Program in Creative Writing. Formerly, he was based out of the UNAM in Mexico City where he worked as Fulbright-Garcia Robles Scholar. A graduate of Cornell University and a former Picador Guest Professor in Leipzig, Germany, his writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Rumpus, the Kenyon Review, Texas Monthly, NBC News, and The New York Times Magazine among other venues. He's currently a regular contributor to the Guardian and the Ploughshares blog. His novel, Bang, is out now from Arte Publico Press. He lives in the beautiful Dallas-Fort Worth area.

In this conversation, Daniel reflects on identity as something multiple and shifting, shaped by language, movement, and lived experience.

We talk about race and belonging in the United States, the role of art as a form of resistance, and the ways language — and even something as ordinary as soccer — can become a bridge between worlds.