Alex Poppe

I speak on topics such as humanitarian aid, international development, USAID, social cohesion, student-centered teaching, and personal development.

• “USAID and What We've Lost,” the Harvard Avenue Christian Church Challengers Class

• “How Stories, Chance Encounters, and Embracing Risk Changed a Life,” the Oklahoma Retired Educators Association (OREA), Tulsa Chapter

• “USAID, What We’ve Lost,” The American Association of University Women (AAUW), Tulsa

• “Building Resistance Thru Theater,” Neon Prairie Music Festival, Tulsa

• “Travel and Memoir,” Featured Panelist, Printers Row List Fest, Chicago

• “The Evisceration of USAID and its Impact on Democracy,” The Tulsa Federation of Democratic Women

• “What the Demise of USAID Means for American Values,” The Rogers County Democrats Party

• “Place-Based Writing,” Printers Row Lit Festival, Chicago

• “The Persona Narrator,” Soho House, Chicago

• “Crafting Fiction from Fact,” Columbia College, Chicago

• “Writing Literary Fiction,” Wilbur Wright College, Chicago

• “Using Storytelling in Student-Centered Teaching,” the American International Consortium of Academic Libraries (AMICAL), Cairo

• “Using Storytelling in Student-Centered Teaching,” the 19th International Conference of College of Arts on Languages and Translation, Al Mustansiriya University, Baghdad

Award-winning author blending literary craft with social justice storytelling. Recent bylines in The New York Times, Lit Hub, HuffPost, and Informed Comment. A full publication list is available upon request.

BOOKS, NONFICTION

BREAKFAST WINE: A Memoir of Chasing an Unconventional Life and Finding a Way Home

• 2025 USA TODAY Best-Seller

• 2026 Oklahoma Best-Seller in Nonfiction

• 2025 Oklahoma Best-Seller in Nonfiction

• 2025 Eyelands Book Awards first runner-up

• 2025 American Writing Awards finalist

• 2025 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year finalist

BOOKS, LITERARY FICTION

DUENDE

• 2024 American Legacy Book Awards winner

• 2023 International Book Awards winner

• Readers’ Choice Book Awards finalist

JINWAR AND OTHER STORIES

• 2024 PenCraft Book Awards runner-up

• 2023 Readers’ Choice Book Awards winner

• 2022 International Book Awards finalist

MOXIE

GIRL, WORLD: STORIES

• 35 Over 35 Debut Book Award winner

• First Horizon Award finalist, Montaigne Medal finalist

• Eric Hoffer Grand Prize finalist

FELLOWSHIPS, GRANTS, & RESIDENCIES

• The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig

• Macondo Writers Workshop, Scholarship Recipient

• The Atlantic Center for the Arts, Artist-in-Residence, Pabst Scholarship Recipient

• DUPLO-LINEA DE COSTA, Artist-in-Residence

• Can Serrat Writer-in-Residence, Grant Recipient

• Designed, created, and delivered communications workshops to elevate the impact of foreign assistance domestically to US voters for Aid on the Hill.

• Designed and led strategic communications workshops for 20+ USAID Mission Directors and staff across multiple countries, strengthening local narrative capabilities and encouraging cross-country collaboration.

• Designed and delivered professional development sessions on advanced storytelling techniques tailored for organizational leadership at Search for Common Ground.

• Invited to train a class of eight teachers hired to run the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education’s teacher training center.

• Designed and led workshops to train 20 public school teachers on Universal Design for Learning, interactive learning, and student-centered learning best practices in Panama for the Partners of the Americas program.

• Mentored German business leaders on presentation skills, clarifying brand identity, and tailoring strategic messaging. Clients included Bundesbank, LaFarge, Land Rover, Delivery Hero, Invest Region Leipzig, Ideen Quartier, mellowmessage, and Connect Worlds. Earned a client retention rate of over 83%.

• Provided executive-level presentation coaching to consultants supporting C-suite leaders at Preemptive Love Coalition, strengthening executive visibility through narrative framing, tailored messaging, and delivery techniques rooted in communications best practices.

• Advised partner governments on strategic communications needs to elevate democracy and governance initiatives, strengthening local partnerships and voter engagement and earning recognition from the USAID Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, USAID/Moldova, and USAID/Pacific Islands.

• Authored high-impact talking points for senior USAID leadership to support media interviews for outlets such as SEMAFOR and Pod Save the World and public engagements, elevating the Democracy Delivers Initiative’s visibility.

• Developed key messaging for USAID’s Democracy Delivers event at UNGA79, writing video scripts and co-creating social media toolkits, which boosted engagement among partner governments, USAID Mission teams, bilateral partners, and philanthropic leaders.

• Designed and led strategic communications workshops for 20+ USAID Mission Directors across a 10-country initiative, strengthening cross-country collaboration and local comms infrastructure.

Content Manager

• Created multi-channel campaigns across 30+ countries, including thought leadership, email, social media, and video content to increase brand visibility and donor engagement.

• Developed a cohesive brand voice that resonated across politically diverse stakeholder groups, facilitating smoother integration after Search for Common Ground’s acquisition of Preemptive Love.

• Led crisis response messaging following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, 2023 Turkey/Syria earthquakes and the October 7 attacks, delivering real-time updates and donor touch points that deepened trust and inspired philanthropy.

• Owned social media and blog content calendar, ensuring timely strategic content publication aligned with key campaigns, organizational priorities, or breaking news events.

• Identified competitive strengths during ideation sessions with senior leaders for the organization’s case for support, shaping messaging that amplified institutional value to funders.

• Initiated and delivered professional development sessions on advanced storytelling techniques tailored for organizational leadership at Search for Common Ground.

Content Marketer

• Led and edited 7 part-time writers, providing performance feedback and coaching to align team outputs with communications goals.

• Led content creation for major campaigns, collaborating with program and development teams to produce content and donor talking points that translated programmatic impact into compelling stories.

• Core editor of the creative team behind Preemptive Love’s award-winning annual journal, editing multicultural contributing writers to ensure editorial excellence.

• Authored Preemptive Love’s top-performing Instagram captions for 7 nonconsecutive months in 2022 to maximize engagement and strengthen brand visibility.

• Story editor for the short film Waiting/Hoping, part of Preemptive Love’s 2022 Giving Tuesday campaign and accepted into the Telluride Film Festival, raising the organization’s visibility.

Staff Writer

• Authored the first narrative fiction feature for Preemptive Love’s annual journal, expanding creative approaches to impact storytelling.

• Wrote culturally sensitive product stories for Preemptive Love's first holiday gift guide, highlighting refugee artisan makers and upholding dignity through human-centered storytelling.

• Provided executive-level presentation coaching to consultants supporting C-suite leaders at Preemptive Love Coalition, strengthening executive visibility through narrative framing, tailored messaging, and delivery techniques rooted in communications best practices.

• Designed and implemented an interactive teaching methodology rooted in storytelling techniques for a six-week grammar/reading off-semester workshop for a multi-level group of college-age learners; 50% of participants were promoted an entire academic level post-completion.

• Created and implemented an active-learning, online curriculum used to onboard 30+ faculty members new to online teaching at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining educational quality during a crisis.

• Curated textbooks for 4 different courses in the CEA-accredited Academic Preparatory Program (APP), adapting content in response to post-ISIS education gaps; nominated for the Excellence in Teaching award.

• Chaired APP’s faculty development committee: awarded Excellence in Research & Development award.

• Co-managed AUIS’s first US State Department English Access Micro-Scholarship Program for 75 students; program success led to a renewed grant over 8 other institutions in the Kurdish region.

• Established and funded an English as a Foreign Language library with materials spanning absolute beginners to advanced exam preparation, supporting student development in the Access Program.

• Taught undergraduate students how to understand what is stated, assumed, or implied and to form a cogent written or oral response, considering both author and reader bias, through literary analysis of feminine dystopian literature.

• While teaching EFL in AUIS’s Professional Development Institute, devised and delivered a four-week presentation/public speaking workshop for undergraduate students at the request of the Chair of the Department for Social Sciences.

Teaching Awards

• Excellence in Research & Development Award, Recipient, The American University of Iraq, Sulaimani

• Excellence in Teaching Award, Nominee, The American University of Iraq, Sulaimani

• Teacher of the Session, The Professional Development Institute, The American University of Iraq, Sulaimani

• Izmir University of Economics/University of Cambridge Teaching Award