https://alexpoppe.journoportfolio.comRSS Feed for Alex PoppeenTue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://media.journoportfolio.com/users/511746/images/90994a34-e132-43e2-b8d8-3abfa6bfdfe8.jpgField reporting from La Guajira, ColombiaTue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://media.journoportfolio.com/users/511746/images/90994a34-e132-43e2-b8d8-3abfa6bfdfe8.jpghttps://alexpoppeauthor.com/books/breakfast-wine-a-memoir-of-chasing-an-unconventional-life-and-finding-a-way-home-alex-poppe/B0DR1NDC2VA USA TODAY Bestseller 2025 Eyelands Book Awards First Runner-up 2025 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Finalist 2025 American Writing Awards Finalist Dress-obsessed and directionless, 44-year-old Alex Poppe can't get her life together. A business analyst, turned actor, turned teacher, she works a dead-end marketing job under a mammary gland-fixated man and still waits tables to make ends meet. A chance encounter with an acclaimed journalist encourages her to accept a teaching position in northern Iraq, which charms with a heart and a fist.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://alexpoppeauthor.com/books/breakfast-wine-a-memoir-of-chasing-an-unconventional-life-and-finding-a-way-home-alex-poppe/B0DR1NDC2Vhttps://muse.jhu.edu/article/906499In order to better serve you and keep this site secure, please complete this challenge. If you are trying to perform text/data mining, please contact Customer Service for assistance. In order to better serve you and keep this site secure, please complete this challenge. If you are trying to perform text/data mining, please contact Customer Service for assistance.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://muse.jhu.edu/article/906499https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/906499Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/906499https://www.theusreview.com/reviews/Girl-World-by-Alex-Poppe.htmlThese deeply human stories are stirring and startling and incredibly relevant in the world women face every day. Spending time in the company of these women will elevate your understanding of the realities women experience all over the world.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.theusreview.com/reviews/Girl-World-by-Alex-Poppe.htmlhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/224-writing-about-chasing-an-unconventional-life/id1612365112?i=1000747834436&l=viAlex Poppe joins Let’s Talk Memoir for a conversation about working in conflict zones, living abroad and negotiating cultural differences, teaching in northern Iraq, youth and female resilience, pursuing something elusive, using fiction techniques for creative nonfiction and essays, not standing on a soapbox in memoir, moving from the personal to the universal, safe domesticity vs. unpredictable intensity, feeling haunted, the tension between wanting to settle down and set roots but feeling desperate to travel, and her love letter to teaching the new memoir-in-essay Breakfast Wine: A Memoir of Chasing an Unconventional Life and Finding a Way Home.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/224-writing-about-chasing-an-unconventional-life/id1612365112?i=1000747834436&l=vihttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alex-poppe-chasing-an-unconventional-life/id1521188599?i=1000712089691Today, I'm incredibly honored to have as my guest, Alex Poppe, the multi-award-winning author renowned for her compelling literary fiction that delves into themes of resilience, identity, and social justice. Her experience as an actor, world traveler, humanitarian aid worker and educator in war-torn conflict zones, before coming back stateside to work for USAID, is what Alex pours onto the page. Alex joins me today to talk about her forthcoming memoir, Breakfast Wine: A Memoir of Chasing an Unconventional Life and Finding a Way Home, which chronicles her transformative journey from that disillusioned corporate professional in the U.S. to an educator navigating cultural complexities and personal upheavals.Sat, 04 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alex-poppe-chasing-an-unconventional-life/id1521188599?i=1000712089691https://www.booklistonline.com/products/9807307Breakfast Wine: A Memoir of Chasing an Unconventional Life and Finding a Way Home. As a self-described risk-taker and adventurer, Poppe spent a decade in Kurdistan as an English-language instructor and occasional humanitarian aid worker, which, for her, checked all the boxes. From 2011 to 2021, the region was rocked by earthquakes both physical and political. The traumas of civil war continued, regimes were challenged, and beloved rulers died. She immersed herself in the struggle to help students stay focused, stay engaged, and just to stay. It was an exacting time to be a woman in a traditionally patriarchal culture, and Poppe, her students, and her colleagues assessed feminism through learned, shared, and explored experiences. Poppe embraces this immersive, multicultural, and unsettling life with a brio that often borders on the foolhardy and a compassion that extends to realms that are simultaneously demoralizing and illuminating. Fearless yet resilient, Poppe is the epitome of a person whose romanticism is tempered by a realism borne of too much experience. With machete sharpness and magical imagery, Poppe extols the allure and apprehension of Kurdistan’s people as she embraces their culture and attempts to prepare them and herself for an uncertain future. A joyous, sobering, and spirited memoir of place and the chance encounters that can shape a lifetime. — Carol HaggasFri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.booklistonline.com/products/9807307https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0msHe was the killer of big blond spiders, the fixer of household things, an occasional Santa’s helper. Among his many acts of service, my father volunteered with Chicago’s Christmas Ship, bringing Christmas trees to disadvantaged families in the area. My father was also a refugee. Dad was 6 years old when his homeland of Germany attacked Poland and started World War II. My grandmother boarded him on a farm outside Berlin to keep him safe. He remembered running through a field toward the farmhouse...Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0mshttps://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0msOnce, toward the end of WWII, when my father and grandmother were in an air raid shelter, a few Russian soldiers came in, sat in the middle of the room and started cleaning their rifles. Dad told me: “They would aim the weapon at one of us, but not fire it. They seemed to have fun with it. I thought for sure I was going to die that day.” He was only 12. I heard his words again when I read about federal immigration agents descending from a Black Hawk helicopter, breaking down doors, and zip-tying U.S. citizens and immigrants in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood last September.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0mshttps://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0msOnce, toward the end of WWII, when my father and grandmother were in an air raid shelter, a few Russian soldiers came in, sat in the middle of the room and started cleaning their rifles. Dad told me: “They would aim the weapon at one of us, but not fire it. They seemed to have fun with it. I thought for sure I was going to die that day.” He was only 12. I heard his words again when I read about federal immigration agents descending from a Black Hawk helicopter, breaking down doors, and zip-tying U.S. citizens and immigrants in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood last September.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0mshttps://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0msHe was the killer of big blond spiders, the fixer of household things, an occasional Santa’s helper. Among his many acts of service, my father volunteered with Chicago’s Christmas Ship, bringing Christmas trees to disadvantaged families in the area. My father was also a refugee. Dad was 6 years old when his homeland of Germany attacked Poland and started World War II. My grandmother boarded him on a farm outside Berlin to keep him safe. He remembered running through a field toward the farmhouse...Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0mshttps://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0msOnce, toward the end of WWII, when my father and grandmother were in an air raid shelter, a few Russian soldiers came in, sat in the middle of the room and started cleaning their rifles. Dad told me: “They would aim the weapon at one of us, but not fire it. They seemed to have fun with it. I thought for sure I was going to die that day.” He was only 12. I heard his words again when I read about federal immigration agents descending from a Black Hawk helicopter, breaking down doors, and zip-tying U.S. citizens and immigrants in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood last September.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0mshttps://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0msDad told me: “They would aim the weapon at one of us, but not fire it. They seemed to have fun with it. I thought for sure I was going to die that day.” He was only 12. I heard his words again when I read about federal immigration agents descending from a Black Hawk helicopter, breaking down doors, and zip-tying U.S. citizens and immigrants in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood last September.Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/06/12/opinion-father-refugee-wwii-immigration-ice-donald-trump/?share=iet2rageumriinwgn0mshttps://halfwaydownthestairs.net/2026/06/01/his-bed-by-alex-poppe/“We’ve always had this undeniable attraction to each other,” Vini says, his voice wispy from a lack of sleep. Outside the bedroom window, morning milks the sky, heralding my hangover. Vini and I first met when I told him off for grabbing my butt in a bar Chris Farley made famous with his belly-flop naked beer slides. It was November 1988. I was a naïve, twenty-one-year-old business undergrad, too afraid to chase an artistic life. Vini was a twenty-three-year-old English grad...Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://halfwaydownthestairs.net/2026/06/01/his-bed-by-alex-poppe/https://www.juancole.com/2026/04/quicksand-feeling-roiled.htmlWatching a war in a country you used to call home from a county you now call home is a quicksand feeling, threatening to suck you under.Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://www.juancole.com/2026/04/quicksand-feeling-roiled.htmlhttps://hypertextmag.com/what-we-owe-to-those-who-save-yet-harm-us-an-interview-with-tim-hillegonds/Interviewed by Alex Poppe A phoenix burns itself into ashes upon its death and is reborn from those same ashes. The same is true for Tim Hillegonds, the author of the hauntingly uplifting new memoir And You Will Call It Fate, published by the University of Nebraska Press on March 3, 2026. The reader accompanies Tim on his journey from high school dropout, struggling addict, and estranged father to sober, accomplished writer. Along the way, Hillegonds challenges the reader to contemplate grati...Mon, 06 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0100https://hypertextmag.com/what-we-owe-to-those-who-save-yet-harm-us-an-interview-with-tim-hillegonds/https://www.juancole.com/2026/03/uncounted-america-waging.htmlYou watch from your 7th floor window as red tracers blush a night sky. A drone intercepts, your windows rattle, and bomb debris nosedives through funnels of black smoke. Red-orange flames lick at the edges of buildings. You look around your home, debating “if” or “when.” Your government has finally issued evacuation orders, but the surrounding countries have closed their air space to commercial travel. You are going to have to find a bus or a taxi willi...Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://www.juancole.com/2026/03/uncounted-america-waging.htmlhttps://lithub.com/expat-economic-migrant-or-refugee-and-why-these-labels-shouldnt-matter/He remembered running through a field towards the farmhouse where he slept as Allied forces strafed the field. Was he crying? In my mind’s eye, I see skinny legs pistoning beneath a canopy of trees, planes thundering above.Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://lithub.com/expat-economic-migrant-or-refugee-and-why-these-labels-shouldnt-matter/https://www.anotherjaneprattthing.com/p/unpopular-opinion-its-ok-to-leaveBarring a major medical emergency or a stock market collapse, my savings might last for another ten or 12 years. I’d be about 70, but then what? Religion and laws aside, is it okay to kill yourself when your money runs out?Sat, 25 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0100https://www.anotherjaneprattthing.com/p/unpopular-opinion-its-ok-to-leavehttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/style/tiny-modern-love-stories-he-insisted-on-keeping-things-casual.html"A Lifeline During Wartime" Multiple civilian deaths from Russian airstrikes. I WhatsApped Kostya in Ukraine. “We’re fine,” he writes, his standard reply. Then, “How are you?” and “Mom says hi.” Back when he and I were “we,” I didn’t always get a response. When we broke, he ghosted hard. I left Ukraine never knowing why. Our reconnection — a byproduct of war. For 1,280 days, we’ve been in considerate contact. When fighting’s fierce, he writes so I know he’s alive. He sends jokes, compliments, new schemes to meet after the war. Peace talks falter. Battles rage. I eye my phone, wary of WhatsApp silence.Wed, 27 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0100https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/style/tiny-modern-love-stories-he-insisted-on-keeping-things-casual.htmlhttps://www.juancole.com/2025/04/moment-distance-matters.htmlSahar first told me about moral distance one May morning on a beach in Cadiz. Born in Baghdad, Sahar fled her country during the Gulf War, smuggling herself first to Syria before she made her way to Sweden, where she became a mental health counselor. I was living in northern Iraq, where I had unknowingly taught alongside one of Sweden’s most notorious sex offenders. As for Sahar, studying flamenco had drawn us both to Cadiz, where Sahar danced it, and I w...Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0100https://www.juancole.com/2025/04/moment-distance-matters.htmlhttps://www.huffpost.com/entry/usaid-worker-cuts-job-lost_n_67e15ea4e4b0bd547770ef36?iwBy eviscerating USAID, Trump and Elon Musk are redefining what it means to be American. Musk thinks empathy is ruining Western civilization. We need to ask ourselves if we want to be seen as small-hearted or generous. Do we want to be known as a nation that cares about those in need? A nation that does the right thing because it is the right thing? Or do we want to be known as a transactional country, willing to betray our long-standing allies, inflict intense suffering on the world’s most vulnerable, and embrace those who trample human rights? Who are we as Americans?Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.huffpost.com/entry/usaid-worker-cuts-job-lost_n_67e15ea4e4b0bd547770ef36?iwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT50xrHMzdYFrom teaching in Iraq to finding an unexpected home in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Alex Poppe's journey shows how a smaller city can offer bigger opportunities. Watch as she shares her remarkable transition from international educator to community leader in America's heartland. Discover why Tulsa's thriving arts scene, welcoming community, and unique opportunities for civic engagement made it the perfect destination for this global citizen. Learn how Tulsa Remote is transforming lives and building diverse, vibrant communities in unexpected places.Wed, 12 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT50xrHMzdYhttps://www.amsterdamreview.org/five-weeks.htmlHe sat huddled with Rehan, a soft-spoken son from a less-famous line of the region’s most famous political family, sharing a pair of earbuds. They were listening to something exciting and revelatory, like desire. When I reached their computer, Aland offered me his earbud while Rehan played a video on YouTube. The three of us hunched together like jewelers around the computer monitor.​Thu, 31 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000https://www.amsterdamreview.org/five-weeks.htmlhttps://jadedibispress.com/alex-poppe-the-12-year-old-decision-that-now-haunts-me/They were to write about their career aspirations. Scrawly English words rioted across a sheet of A4 paper. The paper belonged to Adnan*, a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy, a student in my English as a Foreign Language (EFL) class. The class was part of a US State Department-funded education program to thwart budding radicalism in East Jerusalem in 2012. Adnan wrote that he wanted to become a suicide bomber. I sat at the kitchen table inside the apartment I rented from the...Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0100https://jadedibispress.com/alex-poppe-the-12-year-old-decision-that-now-haunts-me/https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220521-jinwar-and-other-stories/Alex Poppe’s collection of short stories is a turbulent itinerary of the marginalised. At face value, the observations laid out in Jinwar and Other Stories tend to border on humour at times. Yet, a cautious approach spells out layers of pain and oblivion as the protagonists in her literature grapple with war, its aftermath and their own place in societies, both their own and others’.Sat, 21 May 2022 00:00:00 +0100https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220521-jinwar-and-other-stories/https://losangelesreview.org/reprieve-alex-poppe/“Al, I think I fucked up,” Luke announced. Seeing Luke was agitated, I shut my computer. Usually, nothing much fazed him. When our apartment block caught fire, and we evacuated to a questionable hotel, and when our apartment block was rocked by a 6.7 Richter scale earthquake, Luke’s reaction was to organize a party. He made luxury out of a moment.  “What happened?” I asked, unsure I wanted to know.Tue, 16 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000https://losangelesreview.org/reprieve-alex-poppe/https://www.nwmissouri.edu/llw/pdf/publications/49.2-Interior.pdf#page=72Pushcart Prize nominee, short fiction Sunlight streaked through the orange-red leaves, illuminating the dust motes hiding in the pale air. Bridget, the student nursing aide supervisor, was helping a chubby toddler feed the ducks in the artificial lake at the center of the grounds. Her gentle cooing skimmed over grass blades and floated up to the window, where I stood. My forehead was slick with a layer of oil. My scrub top was crusty with dried oatmeal, and my pockets were bloated with wadded Kleenex. Visitors’ Day was winding down. On Visitors’ Day, we got a lot of extended family and clergy and shiny people who came because the other people who came were shiny and felt guilty, and no one was too ashamed to cry big tears, and stay for a few hours to feel good about themselves and the time they had just put in, and they needed extra Kleenex from the student nursing aides who were always there.Mon, 31 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000https://www.nwmissouri.edu/llw/pdf/publications/49.2-Interior.pdf#page=72