e*lix*ir comes into being to showcase the work of artists who find inspiration in the Bahá’í vision and to foster an aesthetic whose key ingredient is the conviction that the mission of art is to inspire, transform, and uplift individuals and communities.

Sandra Lynn Hutchison serves as editor-in-chief of e*lix*ir (elixir-journal.org), an online journal of the arts she founded in 2015 to showcase art that celebrates the power of spirit. She is the author of two books of poetry: The Art of Nesting and The Beautiful Foolishness of Things, which was a finalist for the Poet’s Corner Chapbook Contest. Her memoir about China in the prelude to and aftermath of the Tiananmen Uprising, Chinese Brushstrokes, was an editor’s choice book of the year. Her translation, with Shahin Mowzoon, of Mahvash Sabet’s second volume of prison poems, A Tale of Love, with an introduction by Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi, was published by GR Books in 2024. She is the author of numerous essays. Her stories have appeared in publications such as Chinese Pen: Western Ink, the Oxford anthology of stories about China. Hutchison holds a Ph.D. in Modern Poetry from the University of Toronto. She is a Pushcart Prize Nominee and has been the recipient of various literary awards and recognitions, including an Emily Dickinson Poetry Prize and a Jane Kenyon Poetry Fellowship from Bennington College. She lives in Orono, Maine, where she teaches scriptural exegesis and mentors writers in courses she offers through the Wilmette Institute. She also serves as faculty for the BIHE (Bahá’í Institute for Higher Education), an online university for Bahai youth who are barred from attending public universities in Iran.

J. Michael Kafes holds an M.B.A. from Lehigh University as well as a B.S. in Finance and a minor in American Literature from Lehigh. He lives in Carmel, New York, U.S.A., with his wife and son. In his spare time, he is working on preserving and applying a body of work developed by Marian Crist Lippitt called “The Science of Reality.”