Embedded Files
Every so often, a writer catches our attention and refuses to leave it. Author of the Moment is our chance to put the spotlight on one of the voices we're especially excited about, with a selection of poems, short stories, and excerpts from their work. Take a little time, read something new, and get to know the writer behind the words. You never know what might get stuck in your head.
HAMILLE SAVORIN
HAMILLE SAVORIN
Poet & Translator
Poet & Translator
Hamille Savorin writes about the things we inherit, the things we lose, and the strange lives objects seem to have when no one is looking. Her debut collection, A Catalogue of Vanishing Things, was published by Hollow Head Press in 2026.
“Some things are not inherited. Some things simply continue waiting for you.”— The Things We Keep
Selected Works
Hamille's Favorites Selected Works
THE THINGS WE KEEP
THE THINGS WE KEEP
My mother kept a blue cup
with a crack running through it
like a river on a map.
She said it was nothing.
She said everything broke eventually.
Still, every morning
she poured coffee into the cup
and held it carefully
with both hands.
After she died
I found it behind the flour.
I washed it.
I dried it.
I put it back exactly where she had left it.
Some things are not inherited.
Some things simply
continue waiting for you.
A CATALOGUE OF VANISHING THINGS
A CATALOGUE OF VANISHING THINGS
No. 14 — The Sound of Your Father Laughing
Recorded once
from the kitchen
during a summer storm.
The recording was lost
when the phone was replaced.
The sound cannot be recreated.
Attempts to describe it
have been unsuccessful.
No. 27 — The Name of the Street
Changed in 1986.
Older residents continued
using the former name
until they died.
The city denies
the old name ever existed.
No. 41 — A Blue Sweater
Belonged to someone
whose name has been forgotten.
Last seen hanging
on the back of a chair.
No photograph exists.
No. 63 — My Mother’s Voice
Still present
in the house.
Usually heard
from another room.
EXCERPT FROM THE HOUSE THAT REMEMBERED US
EXCERPT FROM THE HOUSE THAT REMEMBERED US
On the morning the house began speaking, Elise was making toast.
It was not a voice at first.
It was the sound of a chair being pulled across the floor in the dining room.
Elise stopped with the butter knife in her hand.
She waited.
Nothing.
Then came three slow knocks from inside the wall.
She put down the knife.
“Hello?”
The house did not answer.
Instead, somewhere upstairs, a door opened.
Elise had lived there for eleven years. She knew every door in the house: the bathroom with its swollen wooden frame, the bedroom door that never quite latched, the closet door that had to be lifted before it would close.
There was no door upstairs that sounded like that.
From the Editor
From the Editor
A note from Faye
A note from Faye
There are writers whose work asks you to understand it, and then there are writers whose work simply asks you to look a little longer.
Hamille Savorin belongs to the latter.
When I first read Hamille's work, I was struck by her ability to make ordinary things feel newly mysterious. A cup, a street name, an old photograph—things we might otherwise overlook become vessels for memory, loss, and the stories we carry without realizing it.
Her writing is quiet, but it isn't passive. Something lies beneath every line, something disappearing just beyond the edge of the page.
We are delighted to share Hamille's work as our Author of the Moment. We hope you'll stay with it for a while.
— Faye K. Holloway
Founder & Editor, Hollow Head Press
Five Questions with Hamille Savorin
Five Questions with Hamille Savorin
Get to know Hamille
Get to know Hamille
1. Your work often focuses on objects and memories. Why are you drawn to those subjects?
1. Your work often focuses on objects and memories. Why are you drawn to those subjects?
I think objects remember things for us.
A person can forget the exact color of their mother's kitchen or the sound of a particular door closing, but sometimes they will see a cup in a thrift store and suddenly remember everything. I like that tension. An object can be completely ordinary and still contain an entire life.
2. Do you usually begin a poem with an image, a sentence, or an idea?
2. Do you usually begin a poem with an image, a sentence, or an idea?
Usually an image. Sometimes it's something I've actually seen, and sometimes it's an image that arrives without any explanation.
I'll write it down before I know what it means. I think that's important. If I understand a poem too quickly, I tend to ruin it by explaining it to myself.
3. A Catalogue of Vanishing Things is filled with ideas about disappearance. What does disappearance mean to you?
3. A Catalogue of Vanishing Things is filled with ideas about disappearance. What does disappearance mean to you?
I don't necessarily think disappearance means being gone.
Things change names. Houses are renovated. People forget stories. Someone's handwriting becomes unfamiliar after enough years. A place can still physically exist and somehow no longer be the place you remember.
I'm interested in that middle ground—the space between having something and losing it.
4. What is something you have kept that you probably should have thrown away?
4. What is something you have kept that you probably should have thrown away?
A receipt from a restaurant that no longer exists.
It's completely unremarkable. There's nothing written on it, and I don't even remember what I ate.
I've moved it from wallet to drawer to box several times. Every time I find it, I think, I should throw this away.
I never do.
5. What do you hope readers take away from your work?
5. What do you hope readers take away from your work?
I don't know that I want them to take anything away.
I'd rather they notice something.
Maybe they remember someone they haven't thought about in years. Maybe they look differently at the things sitting around their house. Maybe a sentence follows them for a few days.
I think that's enough.
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