PHANTASMAGORIAS: A MEMOIR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Royce Clay Slape Seiger is
a dual citizen, U.S.A. by birth, and Costa Rica, for love. He lived most of his first decade in a tiny railroad town. Where he explored the Colorado Rockies with his own Border Collie and Shetland Pony.
Regarding an essay excerpted from Phantasmagorias: A MEMOIR
"… Well-crafted… working at such a high level… great strengths: handling these topics with grace and sensitivity… the voice is compelling, conversational, invites us into a particular world but then challenges us to look at our world, our own lives… a privilege to read… tackling something challenging, and doing it well… not afraid to look at a complex, uncomfortable subject and to challenge the reader to sit in their own discomfort… the courage to examine its speaker's life--mistakes, triumphs, and evolution of their own ideas… compelling… honest… topical, but also resonant beyond the speaker's particular experience, giving it legs to last for a while… beautiful--bravo!"
– Bridget Apfeld, Associate Editor, member of Carve Critiques team, Carve Magazine.
A random highway curving its way through the Colorado Rockies.
PREORDER NOW
COMING SOON
BUY NOW
My parents as sweethearts. Taken
in Oklahoma, inside
a photo booth at the local fair. In the months leading up to their marriage:
November, 1938
After a stint in the Pacific Northwest, he lived seven years, most of his teens, in the remote Alaskan tundra. Followed by his young adult years, upwards of twenty, again in the Pacific Northwest. To study and work as a medical social worker, challenging and rewarding years. Which included hospice care, professionally and as the primary caregiver for his aging parents.
Phantasmagorias: A Memoir, Book I, takes place in the Colorado Rockies. In the years before and after the U.S. back-to-the-land movement, still active in the 1970s.
For his first ten years, a child lives in a solitary world with his mother for days and sometimes weeks on end. Only they are aware of intrusive thoughts, voices, apparitions, and personalities that plague his mother's mind and their time together.
- “…I recognized this hot, glazed-over look in my momma’s eyes… her eyes always let me know. My momma was doing everything within her power to hold on for my sake.” – Royce Clay Slape Seiger
The child's father works away as a "day laborer" for the Western Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. When home, he too, struggles. Battling vivid nightmares, daytime flashbacks, and seizures, from time spent years earlier in harrowing foxholes on the frontlines of WWII.
- “Daddy's night terrors soaked his sheets with his sweat. …Daddy said I was the best at cuddling him back to sleep.”
- – Royce Clay Slape Seiger
The child becomes a chronic somnambulist. His night frights carried over into the daytime. He escapes through child play and through out-of-body experiences which he practices learning to control.
- “Most nights, I somnambulated without waking a soul. …But turbulent emotions churned inside me. …I hummed, jabbered, shouted, snored, and slobbered foam while gritting and grinding my teeth.”
- – Royce Clay Slape Seiger
But something else ratchets up the terror factor early on: dark, archaic rituals practiced by the worldwide Movement of God, whom the child's family turns to for help and doesn't yet recognize, as an apocalyptic cult.
- “An exorcism? Holy crap! Why couldn’t our family be like other families and plan, say, a weekend barbeque or a day trip to the beach?” – Royce Clay Slape Seiger
- COVER PHOTOS -
BOOK III: ON A HOMESTEAD IN ALASKA
MY LOVING, FRACTURED FAMILY SEQUESTERED BY A DOOMSDAY CULT
Regarding a fiction piece, informed by but unrelated to, Phantasmagorias: A MEMOIR
I truly enjoyed this…wonderfully experimental in its way… thanks for the great read - Nate Brown, author, managing editor of American Short Fiction and senior lecturer in the University Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University.
"… Written well… nice phrasing and sentences throughout… you've also taken a risk – which I heartily encourage…" - Stefen Styrsky, associate fiction editor, Tahoma Literary Review
"… We enjoyed it… you do a great job with imagery… I was able to visually see all the scenes presented. In addition to this, the narrator has a strong voice. – Typehouse Literary Magazine
Me, age one. In 1961, twenty-three years after the photo of my parents-to-be, at left, was taken.
In these Chronicles, when a vulnerable family falls prey to toxic, religious radicalization, can love conquer all?
BOOK I: THE COLORADO ROCKIES
MY LOVING, FRACTURED FAMILY IN THE MAKING
BOOK II: LONGVIEW, WASHINGTON
MY LOVING, FRACTURED FAMILY IN SEARCH OF HEALING
Until both passed, in the same bedroom, of his home. Starting his forties, in 2002, Royce took his adventures further, signing up for a year-long internship with a nonprofit arts organization in Costa Rica. Where he lives with the “Tico” (the name Costa Rican males call themselves), whom he has called Hubby, for eighteen years. In 2007, Royce founded Intercultural Odysseys Costa Rica, an international artist-in-residence program. Which continues to introduce Costa Rican art and culture to artists from around the globe, and vice versa. Royce continues to see the world. His two favorite cities are Amsterdam and Paris. To date, he has visited upwards of a dozen countries in Europe, Asia, and the Northern and Central Americas. With Hubby and Hubby’s mother, Grace, Royce shares custody of Sissy. A toy French Poodle who
when she isn't posing for photos, loves to run like a champion around the
racetrack at the park.
Sissy's superpowers are the ability to soften hard
hearts, and transmit her thoughts telepathically.
© 2023 Royce Clay Slape Seiger
ABOUT THE COVER
- COVER BACKDROP -
I have always admired stained glass as an art form. The stained glass here, represents fragmented beauty, as in the concept of a "loving, fractured family." This art form has for centuries adorned the sunlit windows of sites considered sacred. What could be more sacred than the love of family? Whether it's the family we're born into, the family that we choose, or the family that chooses us.
- Royce C.S. Seiger
July 1, 2019, People Magazine Investigates: Cults, aired “The Movement of God.” Exposing the insidious cult the author grew up in, until he escaped in his early twenties. January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared an international public health emergency. Time to edit scenes he’d been scribbling for decades. Some days dreaming of publishing. Other days content to relive, weep as needed, write when possible, heal, and move on. These chronicles of a unique family life emerged: separate but linked adventures in four distinct locations.
BOOK IV: PORTLAND, OREGON
MY LOVING, FRACTURED FAMILY ON THE MEND
Regarding an essay excerpted from Phantasmagorias: A MEMOIR
Observations by fellow writers regarding excerpts from very early drafts of Phantasmagorias: A MEMOIR
"… A wonderful memoir essay in progress. Narrative structure is sound, the language and imagery are vivid, characters are nicely developed. That opening paragraph deserves a chef's kiss of the fingers - Ann Beman, co-publisher and nonfiction editor, Tahoma Literary Review; longtime nonfiction editor of The Los Angeles Review; Reviews/Interviews Editor, https://TheMuseumOfAmericana; board chair, Red Hen Press; and writing coach. (Royce notes: the paragraph referenced appears in BOOK IV, not as an opening).
"… Ambitious, and your perspective is one that would be of interest to many in this moment… you have an obvious talent for anecdotal writing,.." – Masters Review workshop critique.
"You're an awesome writer and I enjoyed reading…"—Kayla (K.S.) Dunigan, author, and sensitivity reader.BlackSensitivityReader.com
About the writer, within earshot, holding up his manuscript: "This guy can really write." To the writer: “I don’t know how
you did that, but it works.” - Jenefer Shute, author of the novels Life-Size, Sex Crimes, Free Fall, and User ID; Creative Writing Instructor and Editor.
"That. What you just read. I thought you were reading poetry." - Gayolord Brewer, the author of fifteen previous books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and cookery. Professor, Middle Tennessee State University; widely published literary critic and produced playwright. (Royce notes: "I had just finished a reading. There may have been wine or even cocktails, involved.")
"Royce Snape brought his own talent to the table." Carol Topolski, British novelist, author of Monster Love and Do No Harm. (Royce notes, "A terrific misspelling of my paternal surname in the acknowledgments of Monster Love: Professor Snape of the Harry Potter sagas? Love it!").