So many elements of ourselves come together in the act of sex: skin and bodily fluids, desire, fear, greed, joy, stigma, pride, affection, guilt, often in the hopes of creating something more beautiful, our personal elixirs of life, however temporary, however permanent.

In Alchemy, Tranquebar's second anthology of erotic short stories, editor Sheba Karim has brought together thirteen diverse works about the pains and pleasures of sex including an unapologetic account of a postmodern man's attraction to his maid, a futuristic tale of a four gendered orgy, a poignant narrative of a boy's sexual awakening in a cinema bathroom, and a lyrical meditation on a mysterious woman's carnal lessons to an imprisoned monk. The anthology's vivid, well-crafted stories move across genres, orientations, continents and genders, taking the reader on an intimate journey through the complex alchemies of sex, desire and love.

Sheba Karim's fiction has appeared in 580 Split, Asia Literary Review, Barn Owl Review, Femina, Kartika Review, Shenandoah, South Asian Review, Time Out Delhi, the erotica anthologies Electric Feather: The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Stories and the forthcoming Venus Fly Trap: The Zubaan Anthology of Women's Erotica and the young adult anthologies Love Like That and Other Stories and Cornered: 14 Stories of Bullying and Defiance. Two of her short stories have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her young adult novel, Skunk Girl, has been published in five countries.. She is a former lawyer and Fulbright- Nehru Scholar, has an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, is working on her second novel and spends a lot of her time in the 13th century. Find out more at shebakarim.com.