Author: Rivera Sun

My neighbors are good people. Always ready with a polite nod or wave. Helpful if your car breaks down. In this rural region, they’re farmers and loggers, truckers and mechanics. They’re quick to volunteer for the local fire department, show up for spaghetti dinner fundraisers, and plow the seniors’ driveway in a pinch.  Two-thirds of […]

The Dandelion Insurrection is here. (And remember: the people win in the end.) “What’s it like to wake up and find your novel has come to life?” A reader asked me this recently and I answered. “Strange. Wild. Frightening. But remember: I also know the end of the story.”  The Dandelion Insurrection was written as a speculative […]

Image: Portland, OR, June 2025 by Spicypepper999 – CC0 No one likes to be deceived. Or misled. To the best of our abilities, we try to use make good decisions based on the information we receive.  What if that information is wrong?  President Trump watched Fox News coverage of riotous protests in Portland, Oregon, and […]

Charlie Kirk’s murder. School shootings in Minneapolis and Denver. Genocide in Gaza. Russia’s war in Ukraine. Violence is everywhere. It’s frightening and heartbreaking. No one likes violence. Do they?  In truth, our culture sends out very mixed messages when it comes to violence. We glorify it in movies. We fantasize about it in video games. […]

Image By Ashraf Amra – UNRWA: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, CC BY-SA 4.0 Gaza is being starved – deliberately, with cruel intention and shocking inhumanity. The photos of skeletal children haunt me. At night when I close my eyes. At dawn when I rise. They should […]

Image: Trump at Alligator Alcatraz in Florida. Photo by The White House, Public Domain After spending months firing federal workers, slashing public services, gutting healthcare, and raising taxes for everyone but the rich, our country just wasted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on a detention center in Florida. Dubbed Alligator Alcatraz, it’s nothing more […]

Portrait Unveiling Celebrated With Art, Music, Theater, Literature and Speeches I often speak about the shift to a culture of nonviolence, a society in which artists, teachers, scientists, political leaders, writers, thinkers, and everyone replaces the typical focus on war and violence with a celebration and affirmation of the power of nonviolent alternatives. In this […]

Created by Rivera Sun, March 15, 2025 You can download, print and use this poster at protests, demonstrations, and other nonviolent actions. Feel free to share it with your friends and networks. Here is a high-resolution version for printing. Remember the vision. The world that we’re standing up for is worth the struggle.

Originally published by PeaceVoice in journals nationwide on Feb 15, 2025 It takes time. That’s what people keep saying in response to concerns about the Trump Administration. It’ll take time before he can get the good stuff done. They say the promised benefits to this chaos are coming soon. Don’t hold your breath. The egg […]

There are popular social posts going around that read: Do not obey in advance or Don’t self censor or Don’t do the fascists’ work for them. In this session, we’ll look at the chilling effect of knowing a repressive regime is coming into power . . . and how we can resist doing its work […]

The Greatest Honor of My Life: Joining the Americans Who Tell The Truth The Americans Who Tell The Truth portrait series by Robert Shetterly is a collection of 275 paintings of the most incredible people in our history. These are the ones who rose up for justice, who spoke out against wrongs, who revealed the truth and […]

Do Not Obey. In Advance or Otherwise.Dandelions are everywhere. If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to live in “the time that looms around the corner of today” where The Dandelion Insurrection begins … well, this is the closest parallel I have ever seen. At the start of the book, a fist thumps down upon the […]

Nonviolence was forged in the crucible of dark times—and its lessons can help us powerfully today. From systemic injustices to global crises, we find ourselves facing challenges that call for courage, creativity, and solidarity. It’s easy to feel hopeless or powerless. But all throughout history, in the worst situations, people have turned to the tools […]

The inauguration of Donald Trump to a second term as president of the United States unleashed a new chapter in resistance. The politics of hate was given the keys to some of the highest positions of power in the world. The situation seems bleak … but the history of nonviolent struggle shows that we have […]

If it launched with a Nazi salute … where do you think it ends?  On Monday, January 20th in the Capitol Rotunda, tech billionaire Elon Musk threw what appeared to be a Nazi salute during the inauguration of Donald Trump as US president. In case we missed it (or misinterpreted it), he made the emphatic gesture again.  […]

by Rivera Sun The spirits are speaking to me. Across time. Through history. Ignore the headlines. Go to the heart.How many millions of humans have stood where you stand now? Afraid. Overwhelmed. Despairing. Raging. The globe spins with their haunting cries from Chile under Pinochet, Liberia under Taylor, Estonia under the Soviets, East Timor under […]

This writing came from Rivera Sun’s newsletter on Nov 24, 2024. To enjoy more writings like this, join her email list. You have to stay human. With all your courage, tears, messiness, brilliance, we need to navigate these times as human beings not automatons. What is the point, otherwise? With extinction on one hand and AI […]

by Rivera Sun for Peace Voice On Election Night in my small town, I sat around a folding table with four election clerks, sworn in by the election warden and doing my civic duty to count every vote. The polls had closed. Darkness pressed heavy against the windows, as it does this time of year […]

Originally published on Waging Nonviolence After the shooting at former President Trump’s campaign rally, many people rushed to say that “political violence has no place in our democracy.”  Let’s go even further and boldly say: political nonviolence is essential for democracy.  The ties between nonviolence and democracy run deep. We know from the groundbreaking research of Erica Chenoweth […]

Every child has that book. The one that breaks your heart wide open. Bridge To Terabithia. The Velveteen Rabbit. Charlotte’s Web. The Hate U Give.  For me, it was Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Based on the true story of Sadako Sasaki, it tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima as […]

A father stands tall in their child’s eyes. Mine towered. He was a 6’6”, red-headed giant of a man, a farmer who loved rock ‘n roll and corny jokes. He taught me to stand up for the underdogs, fight the good fight, and stick it to the Man.  He also taught me to speak out […]

Image by Pexels from Pixabay Local news has its finger on the pulse of our communities. When city council acts (or acts up), when disaster strikes, when corruption or scandal needs to be scrutinized, local news steps up. From our kids’ sporting events to small town heroes, road construction detours to storm preparedness, they cover […]

“Dreams of War, Dreams of Peace” – an excerpt from River Dragon ___________ This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series.You can get River Dragon here. Since the official trial would not start until the next morning, the Twins of the Sisterlands and the Abbess led Ari Ara on a tour […]

“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 here. The lanterns and lit windows of Mariana Capital gleamed like a low constellation of stars. Ari Ara, Brinelle, and the others gathered abovedeck. Each stood quietly, holding […]