Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!

@ardenpowell

Queer SFF author/artist, they/them 🇨🇦 Flos Magicae, Faerie Hounds. Mar 2026: THE BAYOU audio Patreon: Itchio: Newsletter: Books:

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Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· 29d

Arguably The Carnelian King is my most nonbinary book because I wrote it to fund my top surgery and all sales go to recouping the rest of those costs. $3.99 ✨ Amz: www.amazon.com/dp/B0DG99K83X/ Itch: ardenpowell.itch.io/the-carnelia... Bookshop: shorturl.at/O9iRx Elsewhere: books2read.com/u/mg62lz

A collection of 15 queer fantasy short stories introducing dazzling new worlds.
From a magical second-hand shop hidden between dimensions to rolling emerald hills dotted with ancient ruins, through carnivorous winter woods and across the war-torn steppes of a crumbling empire, this collection spans beloved fantasy genres from classic to cozy, action and adventure to sword and sorcery, and gothic horror to romance. Some of these many star-crossed worlds include:
A dashing knight nostalgic for the lost myth and glory of the Golden Age, and a reclusive sorcerer who is more than he seems.
Gentlemen dragons, sapphic dragons, dragons as small as hummingbirds and as vast as rivers.
The first installments in a new sword & sorcery series, featuring a mercenary knight who cannot be killed and a horde of witches, lich-kings, and curses.
Trading tales of survival in the god-wrecked scrublands of the old west.
An eldritch house hungering for fresh meat.
A disgraced prophet, his flirtatious rival, and a foal whose birth foretells great changes for their land.

Cover art for The Carnelian King and Other Stories: fantasy illustration of a red and gold dragon with a snakelike head looking at a knight in golden armour. The knight is riding a grey horse rearing to meet the dragon. They are against a dreamy, romantic background of painted trees and sky.

Queer fantasy and horror short story collection with and without romance, including gay, bi, sapphic, and nonbinary characters.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· 29d

Nonbinary books by a nonbinary author for Nonbinary Day! All my books are queer SFF (fantasy, romance, horror) but these 3 have nonbinary trans main characters. Book descriptions in alt! 💛🤍💜🖤 Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io Amazon/KU: www.amazon.com/stores/Arden... Patreon: www.patreon.com/ardenpowell

The Potion Gardener illustrated cover art: a couple sits on a park bench with a terrier, surrounded by flowers, crystals, and insects in a symmetrical pattern against a spring green background.

Nonbinary trans masc MC x older butch lesbian. Cozy fantasy romance set in a 1920s English cottage with magic. In Kindle Unlimited.

Winter's Dawn cover art: a shirtless man from waist up, curled over, his back to the reader, against a pink and purple background of roses.

Cis male MC x nonbinary masc love interest. Gothic romance set in a historical magic prison. In Kindle Unlimited.

Zen Solaris and the God-Child: A Short Story. White text on an orange desert under a leafy green sky.

Nonbinary intersex trans masc MC. Dystopian science fiction on Itchio and Patreon.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Jul 3

No. Fuck off.

Screenshot of email subject line from MailerLite. "Meet Your AI Email Marketing Assistant: Claude + MailerLite"

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Jun 23

Free shipping at bookshop.org June 23-26 for Anti-Prime Day! If you need more queer romance on your shelves you can get all 6 of my Flos Magicae paperbacks through them as well as The Faerie Hounds of York, Obsidian Island, The Carnelian King, and A Summer Soundtrack for Falling in Love 🌈💜

A stack of my paperbacks in a rainbow gradient against a blue sky.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Jun 19

I finished SAS: Rogue Heroes and happy Pride to these two and their unspoken (unspeakable) doomed wartime romance. We're not burying the gays, we're losing the body to the desert so we can never have closure and be haunted in perpetuity by the future that could have been.

Paddy Mayne and Eoin McGonigal playing the piano together from SAS: Rogue Heroes season 1.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Jun 10

It's the xkcd average familiarity cartoon all the way down, I'm afraid.

"Silicate chemistry is second nature to us geochemists, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars."
"And quartz, of course."
"Of course."

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· May 30

Got to see dozens and dozens of these guys though, dipping back and forth across the water. They must have just arrived this week; I've never seen them before. The weather's freezing but they're gorgeous and a joy to watch. Cliff swallows!

Photo of a cliff swallow. It's a round little bird with a black mask, white underbelly, brown wings, and rusty colouring under its chin and across its back.

Photo credit: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Cliff_Swallow/photo-gallery

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· May 17

You're trapped in the last TV show you watched, where are you? Well. I'm in Glasgow, apparently. And I'm probably fucking miserable.

Richard Gadd and Jamie Bell as Ruben and Niall in HBO's Half Man.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· May 12

Kickstarter screenshot: CA $100,873 pledged of CA $13,693 goal.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· May 6

For my birthday this year I got diagnosed with chronic migraines! To celebrate (and raise funds for all the new meds) I'm having a Reverse Sale on Itchio ~ 6 queer SFF books for $25 until May 17. Come celebrate with me and add to your TBR ✨📚 itch.io/s/185702/rev...

Screenshot of the books in the sale:

The Carnelian King and Other Stories. 15 short queer fantasy stories introducing dazzling new worlds.

In the Pit of Your Stomach: An Interactive Horror Story. A choose-your-path horror story with a dozen gory dead ends.

Obsidian Island. An action/adventure gay fantasy romance with horror elements.

Flesh and Bone. An MM western gothic horror-romance novella.

Zen Solaris and the God-Child. A queer dystopian science-fantasy short story.

The Bayou. A queer southern gothic horror novella.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· May 5

Quote with four of your book covers! 💫 (or as many as you have so far) My Flos Magicae novels (1920s queer romance + magic) Cover art by me 🌈💜 #booksky #romancelandia

Illustrated cover art for four novels in the Flos Magicae series:

The Bachelor’s Valet: watercolour silhouettes of two men, one fixing the other’s tie, on a teal background in a field of tall yellow hollyhock flowers. MM romance.

A Novel Arrangement: yellow silhouettes of a woman in a 1920s flapper dress with two men fawning over her, against a blue background of morning glories. FMM romance.

A Thief and a Gentleman: silhouettes of two men waltzing on a violet background, with rose bushes in the foreground and orange trees above. MM romance.

Of Socialites and Prizefights: two women in silhouette, one butch, short, and white, the femme tall, slender, and brown, dancing in a field of tiger lilies against an orange background. Sapphic romance.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Apr 28

Maybe this is the reason my digital TBR is so unwieldy. Looking at this just isn't inspiring me to start a new book. This is anti-bookshelf-aesthetic.

Screenshot of my TBR folder of faceless mobi files including some really great books pretending to be completely anonymous.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Apr 12

My queer western horror-romance novella FLESH AND BONE! My art, drawn and lettered in Krita. It's a hard 180 from my Flos Magicae covers in style and palette, but illustrating the Rockies up top was very satisfying.

Flesh and Bone: an MM horror romance novella by Arden Powell. Illustrated 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.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Apr 8

MANTASY.

Man's Life Magazine: Weasels Ripped My Flesh, featuring a shirtless man in water throttling a weasel.

Man's Life Magazine featuring a MF couple, both with their shirts ripped open, in a jungle river being beset by giant serpents. The man is faring significantly worse than the lady but he's copping one last feel before the venom gets him.

True Men Stories: Lizards From Hell. Another de-shirted MF couple in a river, this time being attacked by little green lizards.

True Men Stories: Flying Rodents Ripped My Flesh. It's TWO shirtless men in a river! They're being scratched and bitten by vicious flying squirrels. The background is all orange. Perhaps this is hell.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Apr 7

My new story THE JAEGER AND THE NARWHAL DISCUSS THE PROPHETIC PROPERTIES OF MIGRATION is in this! The newest Polar Lights zine has 130+ pages of amazing animal art and writing to raise money for Antarctic ocean wildlife and habitat ❄️✨🐋 $2+ on Itchio: polarlightszine.itch.io/polar-lights-4

The first paragraph of the story.
The juvenile long-tailed jaeger knew nothing beyond the Arctic: first the yellow grass and scrubby hills of the tundra where he begged for voles and lemmings from his doting parents in his nest, and now the choppy dark grey ocean waves, where he learned to chase terns and gulls and bully them out of their hard-won catches surrounded by the cries of his flock keening through the rough air. The days were long, the fish plentiful, and the ground was soft enough for growing things. He shared the sky with his flock and their rivals and the water with a particular friend: a narwhal who briefly joined the young jaeger each day to play
and impart his cetacean wisdom, which, to a bird so fresh on the wing, was ancient and vast in its depths.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Apr 4

First read of April! Assassin's Apprentice, first of the Farseer Trilogy. I picked up an armful of Robin Hobbs secondhand only to realize that I didn't have a single Book One in my haul. I've finally started here, at the beginning, from the library. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Cover art for Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb, featuring a stag on a crest and medieval-style lettering.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 31

It's Trans Day of Visibility! I'm a nonbinary (agender) indie author and illustrator with over a dozen queer fantasy, romance, and horror books. You should buy them and/or join my Patreon today 🏳️‍⚧️✨ Patreon: www.patreon.com/ardenpowell Itchio: ardenpowell.itch.io Amz and KU: shorturl.at/GVSqw

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.

Cozy historical MM romance set in 1920s London with magic. For Wodehouse fans!

The Faerie Hounds of York illustrated cover art: a woodcut-style wolf rearing up against a dark green background.

Bittersweet gothic gay romance set in 1800s Northern England with magic.

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 with a dark MM relationship set in 1930s Louisiana.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 30

Canadian authors, if you aren't eligible for the US Anthropic lawsuit bc you didn't register US copyright, we have our own class action suit! It doesn't rely on registering copyright and you're included in the class by default 🇨🇦 Sign up for updates here: www.cfmlawyers.ca/class-action...

COURT: Supreme Court of British Columbia, Vancouver Registry

DATE FILED: May 23, 2025

A proposed class action lawsuit has been filed in Vancouver against Anthropic PBC.

The plaintiff alleges that Anthropic PBC violated copyright held by Canadian authors when training its large language models. Specifically, the plaintiff alleges that Anthropic PBC downloaded “Books3” dataset. This dataset contains large amounts of copyrighted works, including books and articles by Canadian authors. The plaintiff alleges that Anthropic PBC used and unlawfully copied and shared these copyrighted works, and did not license or otherwise obtain permission to do so from the copyright holders.

If you have any questions about the case or information that you think may assist our investigation, please contact us by clicking on the contact button or calling the number below. Any communication is strictly confidential.

Contact: Oliver Pulleyblank
Phone: 604.697.2480 ext. 240

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 29

A neat chart about spring frost dates in the Maritimes and timing your vegetable planting based on your local dandelions 🌱 From northshoregardeninglife.ca/last-frost-d...

A chart describing when to safely sow or transplant garden vegetables depending on the stage of your local dandelions. By Greg Auton.
Green: lettuce, onion, leek, parsnip, spinach
Yellow: asparagus, beet, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, swiss chard, kale, parsley, pea, potato, radish, turnip
White: bean, corn, cucumber, eggplant, melon, pepper, squash, tomato

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 27

New promo slop in my inbox today. Over 1000 words with zero line breaks. These dipshits aren't even deleting the bots' replies to their prompts before hitting send.

Message: Excellent, rich research on Arden gathered. Here is the fully personalized outreach message: Subject: The Potion Gardener — Getting Your Book in Front of the Readers Who Are Already Searching for It Dear Arden, I came across your book and spent real time reading about what you've built here.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 25

Nonbinary author here! I have a series of 8 standalone queer romances (incl gay, bi, sapphic, polyam, and nonbinary) set in the 1920s with magic. 🌈📚 THE BACHELOR'S VALET is on sale for 99c US/UK all week: www.amazon.com/dp/B09BLH3S9P 🌈💜 4 novels + 4 novellas in KU: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...

The 4 Flos Magicae novel covers. Historical queer gaslamp fantasy, mostly low-angst.
The Bachelor's Valet (MM)
A Novel Arrangement (FMM)
A Thief and a Gentleman (MM)
Of Socialites and Prizefights (FF)
Novellas not pictured:
The Botanist's Apprentice (MM)
Winter's Dawn (MX)
The Solstice Cabin (MM)
The Potion Gardener (FX)

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 24

The March Cozy Sale is live! THE BACHELOR'S VALET is 99c in the US/UK until the end of the month. Historical fantasy with a fluffy gay romance set in 1920s London with magic, for lovers of Jeeves & Wooster 🌈💜 Amz/KU: books2read.com/u/3Jd2qK Browse the sale: sheilajenne.com/march-cozy-s...

Back cover copy:
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 is a novel in the Flos Magicae series, a collection of queer romances set in an alternate 1920s universe with magic. All the stories are standalones and can be read in any order.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 18

THE BAYOU audiobook is out in the world!! It has ghosts, it has 1930s bank robbers, it has all the content warnings you can imagine for a queer southern gothic horror story! Narrated by Rowan Hayes. 🌈📚 🌈🚀💫 🌈📚🩸 🩸📚💙 Libro: libro.fm/audiobooks/9... Audible: www.audible.ca/pd/The-Bayou... More links ⬇️

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 14

I read Yours Celestially by Al Hess! A charming SFF romance starring an asexual agender AI angel who counsels souls in a digital limbo, and a resurrected-from-the-dead former drug addict and divorcee who can feel the angel's feelings for their beloved. www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Cover art for Yours Celestially by Al Hess. Painting of a suit and hat without a head against a cloudy blue sky littered with pop-up computer messages.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Mar 2

The Indie Bites special edition hardcover is funded! Back it by March 21 to get: ✨my gay bardic romance COURTSHIP AND KULNING ✨19 more fantasy stories from the indie community ✨illustrated endpapers ✨ribbon bookmark ✨THIS dustjacket art in gold foil, drawn by me www.kickstarter.com/projects/268...

The Quintessential Indie Bites cover art, illustrated by me. Magical creatures including dragons, cats, and krakens, and items including skulls, gemstones, swords, and a huge branching tree decorate a full wraparound cover in gold lines against a dark maroon-purple background.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Feb 26

It's the Sapphic Shelf Explosion sale and OF SOCIALITES & PRIZEFIGHTS is 99c! ✨Butch/femme romance ✨Lesbian awakening ✨1920s London+magic ✨Shapeshifter curse ✨Looking for true love's kiss US: www.amazon.com/dp/B0CSC1JHLV UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CSC1JHLV 200+ more #Lesfic books: yearofqueerlit.com

Of Socialites and Prizefights illustrated cover art: two women in silhouette, one butch, short, and white, the femme tall, slender, and brown, dancing in a field of tiger lilies against an orange background.
Sapphic fantasy romance in ebook, paperback, and kindle unlimited!

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Feb 6

I have 4 ebooks now available on bookshop.org! A queer fantasy short story collection, an MM action/adventure Age of Sail fantasy romance, a southern gothic horror, and an interactive horror. (I have 10 paperbacks there, too ✨) 🌈📚 bookshop.org/beta-search?...

Cover art for The Carnelian King and Other Stories: illustration of a red and gold dragon with a snakelike head looking at a knight in golden armour. The knight is riding a grey horse rearing to meet the dragon. They are against a dreamy, romantic background of painted trees and sky.

Obsidian Island cover art: title over a golden compass surrounded by flowering crimson tree branches, on a navy blue background of swirling tentacles.

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.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Feb 4

If you see this, post a dragon 🐲 My boy the Carnelian King himself from the cover of my CARNELIAN KING collection!

Painting of an orange dragon with a snake face, whiskers, and horns. From the book cover of THE CARNELIAN KING AND OTHER STORIES, a collection of queer fantasy short stories.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Feb 3

If we're all looking for Adobe alternatives again, I've been using Krita ever since I lost my ancient version of Photoshop. Krita is free, opensource art software for Windows + Mac with no AI features (unless you add them yourself). I drew all my book covers with it last year! krita.org/en/

Krita's website header: an anime-style painting by Tyson Tan.
Krita is a professional FREE and open source painting program. It is made by artists that want to see affordable art tools for everyone.

Arden ~ THE BAYOU audio is out now!@ardenpowell· Feb 1

My first reprint story to start the year! M/M rivals-to-lovers fantasy romance set in an empire built on horsemanship, saint-worship, and prophecy, with an exploration of career-ending injuries and chronic pain. 8700 words. For $2 members and up: www.patreon.com/posts/under-...