You may have heard me quote a former acting coach a time or two on this podcast, that “if 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.”  I’d say the same holds true for any good author or storyteller.

Today, 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. 

After graduating at the top of her university’s 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, “hit my head too many times on the glass ceiling and exchanged my corporate life to pursue an artistic one.” 

Poppe moved to New York to enroll in the ‘Circle in the Square’s’ two-year professional actor training program.  It’s 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: [email protected]

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

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To give feedback or a story idea: [email protected]

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: [email protected]

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."