Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Poppe

Hi Alex, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

I am a business analyst, turned actor, turned educator/humanitarian aid volunteer, turned writer. For the last seven months, I have served as the strategic communications advisor for USAID’s Democracy Delivers Initiative. My latest book, Breakfast Wine, to be published in May 2025, recounts my eight years living in northern Iraq, which charmed with a heart and a fist. If you had told my twenty-two-year-old self my life would turn out like this, I would not have believed you.

Upon graduating from university, I took a position with Mobil Oil. This was in 1989, a time when the glass ceiling was low enough for me to constantly bump my head against it. If I hadn’t been so disenchanted with the corporate world, I would not have had the guts to audition for a play, enroll in theatre classes, and eventually quit my corporate existence to pursue an artistic one.

Theatre training provided an essential foundation for the rest of my varied career. Besides developing my public speaking skills, studying at Circle in the Square’s two-year professional actor training program honed my observation skills, which enabled me to quickly identify and address individual student learning challenges when I was an educator. Working through scene study classes sharpened my ability to collaboratively and creatively problems solve, which I do constantly in my current position at USAID. Finding a character’s humanity and creating their interior life developed my curiosity, empathy, and research skills, all of which are essential to creative writing. Learning how to construct a character’s world made my own perspective more multi-faceted and less myopic, key to writing fiction and understanding the geopolitical forces often at play in humanitarian aid contexts. Storytelling underpins all of what I do, whether I am helping students master learning outcomes, creating my own literary work, or advising partner governments on how to tell their stories.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

Living in places such as Iraq, the West Bank, and Ukraine has shaped my understanding of privilege, hegemonic legacy, resilience, and the power of kindness. My father grew up amidst war and scarcity. Thanks to my birth gifts (being born white and middle-class in the US), I didn’t. When I compare my upbringing to that of my students at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani or my Palestinian students in East Jerusalem, I have not struggled.

I have never been rounded up during a home invasion, dragged into a courtyard in the cold, dead night, and beaten just because. I have not found body parts in the courtyard of my middle school. I have not held my breath as my father and uncle defended our home from sectarian violence while British tanks rolled up the street to save the day. I have not had to flee for my life three times before I turned 21. I have not lived in a camp for displaced persons because ISIS attacked my town. I have not ducked down in the back seat of my car, frantically calling my English teacher as a militia shot up the street. I have not held my breath through check points because I have the “wrong name.” I have not seen my neighborhood decimated beyond recognition. I have not seen my aunt and uncle shot by coalition forces before my eyes. My students have.

War reverberates across a life long after the bullets stop flying. Women and children bear the brunt of violent conflict, but their voices are not included in the decision-making that leads to military engagement. I write what I write to create a platform for their voices so, hopefully, their perspectives and experiences will be measured and considered when we decide to arm other countries or engage in violent conflict.

Three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly, writing a blurb for my first book Girl, World, commented, “Care about these characters and you might help build a warmer world, a less predatory world. The stories seem to unfold effortlessly, but at a deeper level, Alex takes truths that everybody knows and makes them into truths no one can ignore.” Her blurb captures why I write literary fiction backdropped by social justice issues. Living in that liminal space between theoretical and actual equality, I have witnessed how violence reverberates across a life, fascinated by the human capacity for joy, wonder, and resilience, all of it shaping how people become who they are. I hope my books spur the conversations that ignite social change.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I write literary fiction which illuminates badass women overcoming adversity in the aftermath of violence. Voice-driven characters spark across pages rich with inventive language and lush imagery. All my narratives are deeply-rooted in place, with Iraq, the West Bank, Ukraine, Spain, and New York City serving as muses. If I write something that shifts someone’s perspective on what they thought they knew about Iraq, Muslims, or being female in a patriarchal world, I am deeply satisfied.

Besides writing something that shifts someone’s perspective, I am proud of the work I did in Iraq and Palestine and grateful to my students who shared so much of themselves with me. On my birthday this year, a Kurdish woman I taught in 2012 reached out via Facebook to tell me what I huge impact I had had on her life. She told me I had shown her another way to live, which had given her the courage to stand up to her family and pursue higher education abroad, eventually becoming a doctor. Former students message me on Instagram to tell me they are pursuing graduate degrees in English or to share their wedding photos. They send pictures when they have children. They message me to say they have become teachers. These kinds of moments fill with gratitude for the life I have lived.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?

I am struggling with this question. Are my birth gifts (being born white, middle-class, in the US) the result of luck or random chance? I do not ask this question sarcastically or rhetorically. How many people around the world won’t live to be 57 (my current age) or have a chance to fall in love, become a parent, pursue a dream, simply because they were born in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine, Venezuela, or Syria?

If there is luck, it manifests itself when we are curious, open, self-aware, and authentic. Asking questions, researching, and letting go of fear create space for luck to work its magic. Going to Iraq was one of the best decisions I have ever made, both creatively and professionally. It afforded me heart breaking and heart broadening experiences, each reminding me of what being fully alive feels like. It was where I really grew as a writer, and I wouldn’t hold my current position at USAID if I didn’t know how to tell a story.

Luck is the glamorous cousin of decision-making. Neither is inherently good or bad. Our feelings about the repercussions of our choices color if we think we have been lucky or have made a good decision. I can only speak about my own journey, but when I act out of fear, I don’t usually like the outcome, nor do I feel lucky.

Perhaps I am ignoring the huge role luck has played in my life. (Apologies, Lady Luck.) After all, how many former actors/educators become strategic communications advisors for USAID?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.alexpoppe.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alex_poppe_author/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alex.poppe.16/