• I write books.

    I do! It's true. I have written for all sorts of different audiences. My first book was literary adult fiction and I've written many many books that have fallen into the category "juvenile fiction" and "YA fiction". I talk about my books and writing in general on my other site, which is at www.karenrivers.com. (I don't know how to make that a live link, so you may have to copy and paste.) (Sorry.) THIS site is about me, my hair, my kids, my appliances, and that time that I rode my bike down a cliff and then got stung by a bee. It may not all be appropriately awesome (or even slightly interesting) to kids, so if you are young, LOOK AWAY. That said, there is nothing harmful here, except the occasional swear, which I ask you to edit out with your eyes. Blink blink.

  • I take pictures.

    Parksville, Day 3

    Thetis Lake, Thursday

    Thetis Lake, Thursday

    More Photos

  • Is it safe to eat raw bacon?

    No. You shouldn't eat any raw pork products. You could get trichinosis and no doubt a number of other food-borne illnesses. With the recent change in food safety standards, I'd frankly cook the crap out of any meat product I purchased before eating it. Even if it's already cooked. Seriously. Keep in mind that I am not a raw bacon expert, I just play one on the web.

  • I Flock

  • Categories

I watched The Cove last night, BRACE YOURSELF.

Posted on March 16th, 2010 by Karen

I know you probably come to this blog because you genuinely care how tall Jake Pavelka is (short!) and how much Jillian Harris weighs (not much!) and now you’re all, “Wha-huh?” because I’m talking a lot about whales in captivity in the light of what just happened at Seaworld and generally I get a bit [...]

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The Cove.

Posted on March 14th, 2010 by Karen

    

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On Choosing Your Cause and Believing, Against All Odds, In The Power Of People to Actually Change Their Minds.

Posted on March 10th, 2010 by Karen

Seaworld spokespeople are now saying that perhaps they won’t use “Tilly” in any more performance-based shows.   This is what we call “spin”.   They are facing a lot of pressure from activist groups.    They are going to play the middle ground until this story drops out of the news. Then Tilly will perform [...]

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On keeping whales in captivity.

Posted on February 25th, 2010 by Karen

A long time ago – 1999, to be exact – I wrote and published a YA novel called Dream Water.   I wanted to write a book about a group of teens who (as children) had witnessed the worst possible thing I knew, and how they continued to deal with the trauma of that through [...]

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