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This is a picture of me holding up both of my self published books!
Bitter Elixir is 42 pages, which I wrote, published, formatted, and self published (and sold!) alone at age 26, during college, for no reason other than the love of it all :)
Another Antidote is 222 pages, published in early 2025, with hand drawn, color illustrations for every one of the 11 themed sections of the book. I also did the formatting alone, which took many, many long hours!
This is a photo of me and my awesome younger brother and only sibling, who just so happens to have written a very successful cookbook this past year! He is also currently running a restaurant in New York City, as a cook, founder, and also (initially) as a videographer.
I feel very thankful for my creative and kind family, including my dad, Leo Laporte, who is in communications, as well. The interest in language and media has always been true for us all, and ideally serves as a way to uplift others!
And, a big shoutout to our awesome mom, Jennifer, who has made this journey possible for both Henry, and also, in different ways, for myself with my writing.
One of my first times ever speaking with a religious sister! Sister Francis is a part of the Sisters of Missionaries of Charity, which was founded by Saint Mother Teresa.
We are seen here at the Solemn High Pontifical Mass for the Jubilee Year of Saint Francis of Assisi. As somebody both born in San Francisco and now living here, I was happy to attend this celebration of the Saint for which our city is named.
You may notice that I am wearing a blue veil. Veiling is customary in more traditional realms of Catholic faith, particularly for those who get to regularly attend Latin Mass! Photo by an excellent SF photographer.
This photo is from a distinctly different part of my life in which I was actively seeking poetry performance opportunities. I have since focused more on writing (including more prose these days) but at the time, stages were my medium. My relationship to modesty, in both garb and subject matter, has also changed.
Here, I am performing three quite long original poems from memory. I also crafted choreography for each part of each poem, and having done ballet for nine years of my life, it was altogether pretty elaborate. The event was a Sober Queer Cabaret, so I had to crop the rest of the photo, since I was wearing a sort of lace bodysuit, to be on-theme with the event.
This took place at the Shelton Theater, pre-pandemic, and was very well received. I felt both happy and confident sharing my work in this medium at that time.
Reviews on Amazon. For ethical reasons, I self-published my second book via Lulu instead, although it ended up being re-sold on Amazon anyway.
Nonetheless, for Bitter Elixir, these are sweet reviews from enthusiastic readers, who are most probably friends :)
These days, I mostly promote my articles, or focus on new work, most of which I pray to more traditionally publish.
These four photos are from 2017, when I first began submitting my poetry, and was able to get two pieces into The Berkeley Times Annual Poetry Edition.
The newspaper was sold at Mrs. Dalloway's, Pegasus Books, and Moe's Books, which are literary hubs in the San Francisco Bay Area, specifically in Berkeley, California.
This was a significant moment for me, as a writer of any kind, and also as a survivor of the harms & challenges of many months of involuntary psychiatric hospitalizations. I am now 15 years in remission, thanks be to God-- and thanks to both medications and meditation.
Having recovered from those unpredictable neurological problems and the related brain damage, I was finally able to write again. Then, so suddenly, my work was actually published. To this day, I feel extremely thankful and honored for this magnificent opportunity!
These two poems speak my entire soul onto paper. The latter, Bubblegum God, is included in my first chapbook, Bitter Elixir, available at Marcus Books online.
Thank you for taking the time to peruse some pieces of my life, as a person and poet and writer!
I am grateful to share these images with you and will add more later. Much love and much gratitude! Although it is only a tiny fraction, the rest will be for another time...
P.S. Please remember that digital portfolios are highly curated!
These photos, of course, do not include the grim and unexpected terrors of much of my 20s, nor the precise and wild horrors-- and resilliance-- that is only being slowly included in my books...
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