Author: Rivera Sun

“The Ordeal of Queens” – an excerpt from River Dragon ___________ This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series. You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign. The lanterns and lit windows of Mariana Capital gleamed like a low constellation of stars. Ari Ara, Brinelle, and the others gathered abovedeck. […]

It’s four in the morning and my heart is in my throat again. The presidential election in November fills me with nothing but dread and despair.  On the one hand, we’re facing a candidate who spews hatred, advocates violence, and peddles sneakers and bibles while facing astronomical legal costs for his fraud, lies, sexual assaults […]

Ari Ara’s novels will live longer than any of us. What a thought! Just like we’re still reading Tolkien, exploring Narnia, and traveling to Never Never Land with Peter Pan, imagine readers of the future enjoying Ari Ara’s adventures 70, 90, or 110 years from now! What will people think in 2134?  Imagine the children […]

This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series. You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign. Ari Ara rubbed her eyes and stared out the crosshatch windows of the ship. The morning had crawled by while she studied. The dense river ports had given way to smaller villages. Fish […]

“Heir Apparent” – Chapter One of River Dragon This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series. You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign. Gritting her teeth, Ari Ara waved to the crowd, a fixed smile plastered on her face. The horse fidgeted beneath her, sensing her discomfort […]

By Rivera Sun Love is in the air . . . or at least occupying the airwaves this week, selling chocolates and roses and candlelit dinners for two. But this romantic love is just a thin slice of the feast of love that exists in the human heart. And when Valentine’s Day rolls around, I […]

By Rivera Sun for Peace Voice As the primaries heat up and the nation goes through the throes of another election cycle, cast your vote for something unexpected, something that defies the lies of politicians, something that could save our nation – and most certainly our souls. Make a choice to weather this election year […]

We all have our reasons for getting alarmed about the climate crisis. With bare ground at Christmas and no snow on the horizon, my neighbors just got theirs. This Northern Maine valley nestles against the border of Canada – and winter without snow is unfathomable. Snowmobiling is a big deal around here. While most of […]

… by Rivera Sun If you enjoy this Solutionary Climate Fiction Story, you will also enjoy Ghosts & Gleaners. … “That crow lady’s back.” “She’s more buzzard than crow.” “Magpie, I’d say. Always on the lookout for shiny trinkets.” Peering through the grimy window, clutching identical mugs of steaming herbal tea, the three workers watched […]

Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun From Sept 25-27, thousands of Indigenous Colombians marched in Bogata, calling for an end to paramilitary violence in their regions. They also voiced support for social reforms to alleviate poverty, pointing out the systemic connection between economic hardship, drug cartels, and the violence. It’s a connection that many places worldwide […]

This post was originally published on Waging Nonviolence. Twin Cities Nonviolent, one of the sites with our Nonviolent Cities Project, held two environmentally-themed musical actions as part of their 12 Days Free From Violence. On Sept. 30, the symphony group Classical Uprising performed “The (Uncertain) Four Seasons,” Vivaldi’s classic with a climate twist. On Sept. 25, another […]

One of the great joys of my life is having a front-row seat to some of the most innovative, inspiring, solutionary work that’s going on. Over the 10+ years since I wrote The Dandelion Insurrection, I’ve found enduring hope in learning how people are building new systems in their local communities, solving problems, and strengthening […]

Nonviolence News Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun If you zoom out to a distant vantage point of human history, you can see the arc of the universe bending toward a certain kind of justice. If we secure a future for humanity, historians will look back on these times and identify them as an era in […]

A Decade of Literary Resistance With The Dandelion InsurrectionCan you believe it’s been 10 years? The Dandelion Insurrection has been lighting up readers’ imaginations for 10 years. It’s hard to believe this golden yellow book has reached a decade of circulation on this maddeningly tumultuous world. It was written as Snowden made his revelations about the […]

Nonviolence News Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun Looking around the globe in this week’s Nonviolence News, it’s evident that people are gripped in “struggles of survival”. The demands are sensible, reasonable: people want safety from brutal repression, they want wages that pay the bills, and they want a planet they can live on that won’t […]

Kids ask the darndest things. On a virtual Author Q & A with a school classroom that read The Way Between, I was asked the question: what do I think about ChatGPT and AI novels? Rather than tear off on a long-winded rant about the long arcs of automation and tech capitalism’s lack of concern […]

. By Rivera Sun for Peace Voice At the post office, my neighbor rolled down the window of his pick-up truck to chat. As is typical in Northern Maine this time of year, we praised the sunlight, warmth, bare patches of ground, and eyed the shrinking snowbanks with delight. “Winter wasn’t so bad, this year,” […]

(Note: This tale is part of the fictional Stories of the Third Brother, an ancient book of folktales about Alaren in Ari Ara’s world. Each folktale teaches a lesson in waging peace using true stories as a spark of inspiration for the tales of courageous nonviolent action. You can find the stories in The Adventures of Alaren […]

This article was originally published on Campaign Nonviolence’s Community Page on Waging Nonviolence. It is reposted with permission. “Aren’t we supposed to sing beyond the choir?” This question recently came up during a training, the person’s eyebrows drawing down into a perplexed expression. On the screen, a diagram of the Spectrum of Allies – a […]

Originally published by Campaign Nonviolence (in collaboration with Nonviolence News) on Waging Nonviolence. Nonviolent action is an art, a science and a toolbox for making change. With over 300 methods of waging struggle — from street art to strikes, boycotts to blockades — and millions of people engaging with it, nonviolent action is innovative, unexpected […]

When I was a teenager, I knew global warming was caused by fossil fuels. So did Exxon.  For decades, Exxon has been hiding the truth about the climate crisis, burying their own scientific reports. From 1970 to 2003, the oil company ran studies that accurately predicted the disastrous consequences of continuing to burn fossil fuels.  They modeled […]

I have a new rule: any day that’s warmer than the historic average is a day to take climate action. In Northern Maine today, the temperature is a nippy 31 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s still cold, but the historic average is a frigid 14.4 degrees.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay By Rivera Sun. Note: In this solutionary climate fiction story, I chose to re-envision my childhood home of Auburn, Maine in the year 2200. In exploring this transformed future, the writing offers a glimpse of how solutionary climate fiction could be an empowering form of worldbuilding for our changing world. […]