Avid readers construct perceptions of the world through ongoing experimentation with the porous boundary between fiction and reality, grafting their favourite stories onto their quotidian lives. From the child who sees her propensity for causing trouble in Anne of Green Gables, the teenager who finds in Bilbo Baggins her own conflict between staying home and leaving on an adventure, to the university student who attempts to channel Elizabeth Bennet's conversational style, we often err in these trials. Sometimes, however, a literary exemplar aligns with a life experience to create a paradigm shift, and metamorphosis ensues. The Alchemy of Stories is a modern collection of creative essays, serving as an ode to those moments-the alchemical convergence of literature and life.