Arden Powell 🎄❄️✨
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ardenpowell.bsky.social
Arden Powell 🎄❄️✨
@ardenpowell.bsky.social
4.4K followers 770 following 6.5K posts
Queer SFF author + artist, they/them 🇨🇦 Flos Magicae, The Carnelian King, Faerie Hounds, The Bayou. March 2025: Flesh & Bone
Patreon: https://patreon.com/ArdenPowell
Itchio: https://ardenpowell.itch.io
Book Links: https://ardenpowell.mailerpage.io
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ardenpowell.bsky.social
It's December, which means it's time for holiday romance novellas! THE SOLSTICE CABIN is a gay historical romance set in Canada's far north. Ghosts, snow magic, northern lights, and best friends to lovers with mutual pining 🎄❄️

✨$2.99 on Amz and KU: www.amazon.com/dp/B0BN6W753D
Solstice Cabin trope map: Elemental magic, snowed in, Great White North, 1920s Canada, best friends to lovers, talkative husky, only one bed, ghosts in the snow, solstice celebrations, gift giving, mutual pining, magic in the northern lights, huddling for warmth.
December 2, 2025 at 5:04 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
I got hit with an unexpected $200 expense today! I need to buy software to keep my new freelance job. It would be amazing to sell some books or get some new patrons to help cover it 😬

Ko-fi: ko-fi.com/ardenpowell
Exclusive fiction: www.patreon.com/ardenpowell
Books on Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io
My books on Itch.io" The Bayou, A queer southern gothic horror novella. $4 Zen Solaris and the God-Child, A queer dystopian science-fantasy short story. $2 Flesh and Bone, An MM western gothic horror-romance novella. $3 Obsidian Island, An action/adventure gay fantasy romance with horror elements. $6 In bundle In the Pit of Your Stomach: An Interactive Horror Story, A choose-your-path horror story with a dozen gory dead ends.​ $3 In bundle The Carnelian King and Other Stories, 15 short queer fantasy stories introducing dazzling new worlds. $4 In bundle
November 28, 2025 at 6:58 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
It's Creator Day on Itchio! Today 100% of earnings go to indie creators, so it's the perfect day to stock up on ebooks. Gift them to friends for the holidays, hoard them for later, read them immediately, have books ✨🖤

All my books on Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io
3 for $9.99: itch.io/s/146541/ard...
itch.io Creator Day! We're not taking our cut of all sales this Friday. All my ebooks available on Itchio: The Bayou: A queer southern gothic horror novella. $4 Zen Solaris and the God-Child: A queer dystopian science-fantasy short story. $2 Flesh and Bone: An MM western gothic horror-romance novella. $3 Obsidian Island: An action/adventure gay fantasy romance with horror elements. $6, and in a bundle. In the Pit of Your Stomach: An Interactive Horror Story. A choose-your-path horror story with a dozen gory dead ends.​ $3, and in a bundle. The Carnelian King and Other Stories: 15 short queer fantasy stories introducing dazzling new worlds. $4, and in a bundle.
November 28, 2025 at 11:34 AM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
New flash fic! A Band of Bluejays in Snow-Capped Rosehips.

"The birds’ underbellies were puffed up against the cold, but their dapper blue jackets were sleek and stylish, and they put the knight in mind of the last company of royal guards with whom he’d served."

✨ www.patreon.com/posts/band-o...
Photo of a blue jay sitting on a bare tree branch in winter. Taken by Melissa Burovac, from Unsplash.
November 27, 2025 at 2:38 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
It's my giveaway day! Share your favourite book by a trans author or featuring a trans character on the original post below and win an ebook copy of my queer fantasy short story collection THE CARNELIAN KING. Open internationally, winner chosen randomly. Rec some indie trans books! 🌈💜 🌈🚀💫 🌈📚
Giveaway banner image. This shows the book dragon and the ghost cat as well as the book cover for The Carnelian King and Other Stories by Arden Powell.
November 20, 2025 at 1:02 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Itchio is back up! ardenpowell.itch.io

✨You own the ebook files for keeps
✨I make the highest royalties on Itchio compared to any other storefront
✨You can tip creators above the sale price if you want to give extra support
✨Buy queer indie books from a queer indie author
🌈📚 🌈🚀💫 🌈💜
The Bayou: A queer southern gothic horror novella. $4. Zen Solaris and the God-Child: A queer dystopian science-fantasy short story. $2. Flesh and Bone: An MM western gothic horror-romance novella. $3. Obsidian Island: An action/adventure gay fantasy romance with horror elements. $6 In bundle. In the Pit of Your Stomach: An Interactive Horror Story: A choose-your-path horror story with a dozen gory dead ends.​ $3 In bundle. The Carnelian King and Other Stories: 15 short queer fantasy stories introducing dazzling new worlds. $4 In bundle.
November 18, 2025 at 3:18 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
...Off screen.
Map of the United States, and then some of the rest of the planet as an afterthought. Canada straight up isn't there. Label reads TELL ME WHERE YOU ARE FROM USING ONLY 2 WORDS.
November 13, 2025 at 7:45 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
New flash fiction: A Murmuration of Starlings, 300 words. A wandering knight witnesses an omen foretelling the death of a king, and is glad for it.

"A witch could tell him the starlings’ secrets, but he had been alone for days, and the land around him was empty."

www.patreon.com/posts/murmur...
Photo of a murmuration of starlings against a pastel pink-blue sky at dawn or dusk, above a dark treeline and brown grass. "A whale in the sky (Starling roost at Otmoor UK)" by James Wainscoat, 2018, on Unsplash.
November 6, 2025 at 9:06 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
This week's short fiction is something spectral for Halloween, in memory of the best boy, Grim, who would have spent this rainy day tucked up in bed fast asleep, refusing to go outside where his paws would get wet.

Read Allhallows (550 words) here: www.patreon.com/posts/allhal...
Photo of a scruffy black terrier asleep on a thick pile of blankets, wearing a knitted scarf around his head and neck.
October 31, 2025 at 4:12 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Queer author writing queer horror! FLESH AND BONE is a gothic western horror-romance with cis gay MCs and physical disability rep. CWs for homophobia, gore, and werewolf body horror.

Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io/flesh-and-bone
Amz: www.amazon.com/dp/B0F1M52FFX
Wide: books2read.com/u/3yxrDV
Flesh and Bone: an MM horror romance novella by Arden Powell. Cover art: yellow silhouettes of two cowboys on horseback ride inside the body of a huge black dog on a crimson background under an outline of the Rocky Mountains. Supernatural wild west, horror romance, short novella, gross werewolf body horror, queer Canadian author, historical Canadian setting.
October 31, 2025 at 2:41 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
It's Halloweentime! Come get some queer horror for the weekend! Southern gothic, historical western, horror-romance, folkloric fae, and it's all gay 🖤🎃🍂

Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io
Amz/KU: www.amazon.com/stores/Arden...
The Bayou illustrated cover art: a minimalist black church surrounded by bare trees in front of a full moon or a pale sun, with a staring alligator underneath. Queer 1930s southern gothic horror. In the Pit of Your Stomach: An Interactive Horror Story illustrated cover art. Comic book style drawing of a ramshackle house and shed in an overgrown yard. Stone steps lead to a pit under the house where a giant skeleton lays. A skinny humanoid figure creeps out from behind the house. Colours are solid blacks and sickly yellow-greens. A CYOA choose-your-path horror story. Flesh and Bone: an MM horror romance novella by Arden Powell. Cover art: yellow silhouettes of two cowboys on horseback ride inside the body of a huge black dog on a crimson background under an outline of the Rocky Mountains. Gay 1800s gothic western horror-romance with werewolf body horror. The Faerie Hounds of York illustrated cover art: a woodcut-style wolf rearing up against a dark green background. Gay 1800s gothic romance with a bittersweet ending.
October 30, 2025 at 1:40 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Hell yeah hell yeah, if you liked IWtV you should definitely read THE BAYOU!!
QT library recommends: If you liked Interview With the Vampire (2022 series), you should read The Bayou by Arden Powell
October 28, 2025 at 3:07 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Shameless marketing to say that if you love a jewel heist, you should read my mm romance A THIEF AND A GENTLEMAN! Set in 1920s London with magic, a con artist robs the National Gallery of its Cheapside Hoard jewellery exhibit 💎✨

Ebook, paperback, and KU: www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCCC9YPD
A Thief and a Gentleman illustrated cover art: silhouettes of two men waltzing on a violet background, with rose bushes in the foreground and orange trees above. - be gay do crime - con artist and jewel thief - habitual flirt dared to seduce the straightlaced one - estranged childhood friends to lovers - fake relationship leading immediately to real feelings - 1920s london with magic - heists with magic - partners in crime - male/female friendships - men in makeup - stolen kisses - sex magic - stolen diamonds and lost treasure hoards - gift-giving as a love language - stuffy gentleman artist bored to death of his predeictable life
October 20, 2025 at 5:08 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Introducing The Knightly Forecast. Support my Patreon for $4 CAD/month, and get a weekly dose of meditative fantasy microfiction in your inbox.

This series follows the changing seasons. The first is completely public and free to read, no signup required.

🍂 www.patreon.com/posts/early-...
Photo of fall trees awash in gold. Credit to Dan Senior on Unsplash.
October 15, 2025 at 5:20 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
bookshop.org has free shipping Oct 7-8 for their anti-prime sale! They have 10 of my paperbacks in stock so you can support indie authors and bookstores while collecting pretty books for your shelves at the same time ✨
A grid of 10 paperbacks by Arden Powell priced from 10.99 to 17.99 available on bookshop.org, including 6 Flos Magicae books.
October 7, 2025 at 5:33 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
ALL THE QUEER BOOKS

✨Flos Magicae: romance series in 1920s London with magic, 4 novels + 4 novellas
✨Faerie Hounds, The Bayou, Flesh & Bone: historical horror
✨Carnelian King: short stories!
✨Obsidian Island: action/adventure fantasy romance

Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io
Amz: shorturl.at/1ZD6s
The Bachelor’s Valet illustrated cover art: watercolour silhouettes of two men, one fixing the other’s tie, on a teal background in a field of tall yellow hollyhock flowers. A funny, lighthearted gay romance set in 1920s London with magic. Bonus lesbians as supporting characters. The Faerie Hounds of York illustrated cover art: a woodcut-style wolf rearing up against a dark green background. Bittersweet gay romance with a faerie curse set in wintery Northern England, 1810. The Bayou illustrated cover art: a minimalist black church surrounded by bare trees in front of a full moon or a pale sun, with a staring alligator underneath. Southern gothic horror set in 1930s Louisiana with a toxic gay romance. All the content warnings on this one. Cover art for The Carnelian King and Other Stories: fantasy illustration of a red and gold dragon with a snakelike head, catfish whiskers and koi scales, looking at a knight in golden armour. The knight is riding a dappled grey horse, who is rearing to meet the dragon. They are against a dreamy, romantic background of painted trees and sky. Collection of queer fantasy and horror short stories! Gay, sapphic, and trans/nonbinary characters with and without romance.
October 4, 2025 at 2:12 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
September 30th / Oct 1st 🌻🍁🍂💀
The Bachelor’s Valet illustrated cover art: watercolour silhouettes of two men, one fixing the other’s tie, on a teal background in a field of tall yellow hollyhock flowers. Gay romance in 1920s London. The Bayou illustrated cover art: a minimalist black church surrounded by bare trees in front of a full moon or a pale sun, with a staring alligator underneath. Queer southern gothic horror.
October 1, 2025 at 2:31 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
May I offer you Thee silliest thing I've written all year: Fionn and Marten vs the demonic Pumpkin King.

"However many pumpkins Fionn stomped into the ground, double that number skittered forth from the field on squiddish vines to set upon him anew." #Swordtember

⚔️ www.patreon.com/posts/swordt...
Photo of dark orange and green mottled pumpkins, by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash.
September 29, 2025 at 8:07 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
And just in time for the horror season, THE BAYOU ebook is now available wide! It's slowly making its way into libraries; if it's not on Hoopla yet, it will be soon 🖤

Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io/the-bayou
Apple, Kobo Plus, Smashwords, etc: books2read.com/u/mdO9pX
Amz: www.amazon.com/dp/B08RCWTSCC
The Bayou: They say the devil comes dressed as everything you've ever dreamed of. Queer southern gothic horror. Illustrated cover art: a minimalist black church surrounded by bare trees in front of a full moon or a pale sun, with a staring alligator underneath.
September 29, 2025 at 1:24 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Publishing news! I'm beyond thrilled to finally share that my queer southern gothic horror novella—set in 1930s Louisiana about a haunted man, a murdered child, a charismatic bank robber, and a disappearing town—THE BAYOU will be coming out in audiobook from Tantor Media.
Publishers Marketplace deal report for The Bayou by Arden Powell. Arden Powell's The Bayou, a queer Southern gothic horror in which people start disappearing and a man is reminded of a death from 20 years ago and the mysterious man that haunted his dreams, while also getting tangled up with a charismatic fugitive, to Emily Loughran at Tantor Media, in a nice deal (world English). Audio rights, Sept 23, 2025.
September 29, 2025 at 1:24 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Another ambiguously gay #Swordtember story! Sir Heron renews his vows of allegiance to Mister Swan, his exiled prince. As little as $4 CAD a month gets you access to exclusive queer fantasy fiction, currently posting 3x week, and helps me afford groceries ⚔️✨🦢

www.patreon.com/posts/swordt...
Photo of a severe-looking great blue heron standing in rippled grey water. Photo credit: Mike Baird, on iNaturalist. Photo of a beautiful white trumpeter swan rearing up out of grey water, brown grassy riverbank in the background. Photo credit: Alan D Wilson, Wikimedia Commons.
September 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
A demon hunter collects fantastic swords based on beetles 🪲

Every other day this month I'm posting a new prompt-based flash fiction for #Swordtember. If you join my page for as little as $4 CAD, you support me writing more queer fantasy ⚔️✨

www.patreon.com/posts/swordt...
Photo of a dogbane beetle: glossy iridescent green, gold, and blue. It's pretty cute. Photo of a golden tortoise beetle by Andreas Kay. Semi translucent shell covers a speckled shiny gold-green body. It's ALSO pretty cute. Art of a brown and black stag beetle rearing up, by Albrecht Durer. Art of a black rhinoceros beetle with a speckled tan shell, by Pieter Holsteyn. It looks very demure.
September 19, 2025 at 1:29 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
Something like this! Warmer than the other greens I've done so far, I just haven't found the perfect sample yet. It needs to go with the dark rusty orange in the next room. (Photo from some random decor site)
Photo of a kitchen with white tile walls, warm wood countertops, and green cabinets with gold button handles.
September 15, 2025 at 1:13 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
None of the colours on this sketch layer are going to survive into the finished piece, but I'm really enjoying the summer sunset colours here.
Messy incomprehensible sketch in pink and purple-blue of an insect against an orange-gold honeycomb background.
September 5, 2025 at 6:58 PM
ardenpowell.bsky.social
THE BACHELOR'S VALET is a 1920s romance between an airheaded young gentleman trying to escape an unwanted marriage foisted on him by overbearing relatives, and his supercompetent valet. Where are my Wodehouse fans? It's blatantly Jeeves & Wooster, I just added magic.

www.amazon.com/dp/B09BLH3S9P
Alphonse Hollyhock is blessed with wealth, class, and more beauty than brains. Though he hasn't got a lick of wit or magic to his name, he's perfectly content living life as an airheaded bachelor with his valet—the clever, unflappable Jacobi—by his side to ensure everything runs smoothly. All he lacks, according to his mother, is a wife. Despite Alphonse's protests, he's to marry Aaliyah Kaddour: a bright, headstrong young woman who would probably be charming company if she didn't threaten everything about Alphonse's way of life. Marrying means giving up his fashionable flat, his fast car, and, worst of all, it means losing Jacobi. Perhaps most distressingly, this talk of marriage is bringing all sorts of confusing feelings to the forefront. Because rather than falling for the beautiful girl being pushed into his arms, Alphonse seems to be falling for his valet. Except a man can't fall in love with another man. Can he? Meanwhile, Aaliyah has plans of her own. She's as devious as she is pretty, but if Alphonse wants to get through this marriage business in one piece, he'll have to trust her. Her and Jacobi, and, most dangerously, his own feelings. The Bachelor’s Valet illustrated cover art: watercolour silhouettes of two men, one fixing the other’s tie, on a teal background in a field of tall yellow hollyhock flowers.
August 28, 2025 at 3:00 PM