Peter Skoggard is a composer, artist, dancer, actor, and poet living in Elora, Ontario. He has written chamber works, chamber operas, one musical, works for voice and piano, and choir, works performed in Elora, at the Guelph Spring Festival and River Run Centre, in Toronto at the Glenn Gould Studio, Cleveland, and New York.

His song cycles have set words and poetry, of John Donne, William Blake, Guillaume Apollinaire Maragaret Atwood, Thomas King, kateri akiwense-damm, R.A.D. Ford, Billy Collins, Jerry Prager, and Asa Boxer. He has set the Latin Mass for soloists, choir, and organ. One opera is based on a 14th Century Japanese Noh Drama. The other is based on the life of Teresa Stratas. He has written Roma: a piano quintet in seven movements.

Performers of his works include Bridget Hogan, Marion Samuel-Stevens, Kathy Domeny, Robert Missen, Tilly Kooyman, Cecile Denis, Christopher Burton, Irene Gregorio, Alexander Sevastian, Tony Quarington, Mino Ode Kwewak N’gamowak, David Earle, the Guelph Youth Singers, Via Salzburg, and the Penderecki String Quartet.

Morvern McNie writes short fiction and poetry.  As a performance poet she has appeared at Hillside Festival,  Eden Mill’s Fringe, Wordfest Elora, The Guelph Arts Festival and The Festival of Coffeehouse Poets. She co-authored a chapter for a University of Toronto publication, Classroom Action.

Human Rights, Critical Activism,  and Community-Based Learning. Her first chapbook was published by Vocamus in 2020.

Moses E. Croc, born Henrick Brand, is a Canadian-born South African slam poet. He is the author of Driftwood, a collection of poems printed as part of the UNISA Flame Series published by Cambridge University Press. He has worked as a graphic designer, candle shop manager, nude model, indie artist, waiter, and drummer, all occupations that have informed his creative pursuits. He has performed his poetry across the world, including at the Latitude Festival in the UK, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in South Africa, and the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Canada.

Photo credit: Open Book Festival croc E moses – Open Book Festival

Luke is the publisher at Gordon Hill Press, based in Guelph. He is also the Managing Director of Vocamus Writers Community, a non-profit community organization that supports book culture in Guelph.

He has written a collection of poetry, short prose, and photography called Island Pieces. Other works include three chapbooks of poetry called Can Con, Trumped, and These My Streets; two poetry broadsheets called Grounded and Indexical; and an ongoing series of poetry broadsheets called Conversations with Viral Media. He also writes a semi-regular column on chapbooks for The Town Crier. His writing has appeared in The Bull Calf, CV2, EVENT Magazine, Filling Station, Free Fall, The Goose, HA&L, The Maynard, paperplates, Queen Mob’s Tea House, The Rusty Toque, The Town Crier, The Windsor Review.

Luke’s Poetry of Thought has been published by Interludes of The Elora Poetry Centre and can be purchased through our website.

Brian Henderson is the retired Director of Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Brian is the author of thirteen collections of poetry. Nerve Language (2007) was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. Brian read at The Elora Poetry Centre from his twelfth publication, Unidentified Poetic Object, published by Brick in 2019. Unfinishing was published by McGill-Queens University Press in 2022.

MLA CHERNOFF (they/them/@citation_bb) was born at Women’s College Hospital in December of 1991––oops. They are a six-hundred-year-old Jewish, non-binary pome machine, a Postmodern Neo-Marxist, and (somehow) a PhD Candidate at the Neoliberal University of York University, where they once held a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship––no kidding.Their first chapbook, delet this, was released by Bad Books in 2018. Their second collection, TERSE THIRSTY, was released by Gap Riot Press in 2019. Their debut full-length collection of poetry, [SQUELCH PROCEDURES], is available from Gordon Hill Press or from The Elora Poetry Centre.

Living in Kitchener, Rae Crossman writes poetry both for the page and for oral performance. His poems have been published in literary magazines, broadcast on CBC Radio, dramatized on stage, performed and recorded as vocal music, and displayed on transit systems across Canada. Collaborative projects include storytelling, choral compositions, and theatrical pieces set in natural environments.For more than twenty-five years, in canoes and along forest trails, Rae has lived the roles of several mythological characters in R. Murray Schafer’s Theatre of Confluence. He has served as a short story editor for The New Quarterly and has received a Waterloo Region Arts Award for his artistic endeavours across disciplines.