{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Alex Poppe . Chasing An Unconventional Life","description":"You may have heard me quote a former acting coach a time or two on this podcast, that \u201cif you want to bring life into your characters, you have to first live a life in order to have something to pour onto the stage, screen or microphone.\u201d  I\u2019d say the same holds true for any good author or storyteller. Today, I\u2019m 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.  After graduating at the top of her university\u2019s undergraduate business school, Alex began her  professional career as a business analyst for Mobile Oil and quickly became disenchanted with the corporate culture after, she, and I quote, \u201chit my head too many times on the glass ceiling and exchanged my corporate life to pursue an artistic one.\u201d  Poppe moved to New York to enroll in the \u2018Circle in the Square\u2019s\u2019 two-year professional actor training program.  It\u2019s where Alex honed her observation skills and enabled her to quickly identify and address individual student learning challenges after she quit her acting pursuits, got certified to Teach English as a Second Language, moved to Poland for her first teaching assignment, and then eventually to the Middle East spending almost a decade there as an educator in several prestigious public and private universities.   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.  You can contact Alex Poppe directly via the followng: Business email: sallya.poppe@gmail.com Business website: www.alexpoppe.com On Instagram at https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/alex_poppe_author\/ On LinkedIn at https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/sallyalexpoppe\/ Order Breakfast Wine at Bookshop.org or your local indie bookstore. Alex will be speaking and doing a booksigning of Breakfast Wine at the following locations: Magic City Books in Tulsa, Ok on June 10, 2025 at 7:00pm pm The Book Cellar in Chicago, IL on June 12, 2025 at 6:30 pm Boswell Books in Milwaukee, WI on June 13, 2025 at 6:30pm If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow 19 Stories wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. It would be greatly appreciated if you gave a nice review and shared this episode well :-) To give feedback or a story idea: 19stories@soundsatchelstudios.com To listen to my demos: https:\/\/www.cherylholling.com\/ To contact me for voiceover work, or to host your podcast, reach out to me at: cheryl@cherylholling.com Follow me on Instagram: @cherylhollingvo Theme Song Credit:  'Together' by For King & Country Outro Insert: "Titantium" by Sia Proverbs 23:18 "Surely there is a future, and your Hope will not be cut off." ","author_name":"19Stories","author_url":"http:\/\/19stories.libsyn.com\/website","html":"