Mark Patrick McGuire is a writer, documentary filmmaker and lecturer in arts and humanities at John Abbott College since 2005. A former basketball player at Davidson College in North Carolina and holder of a PhD in Religions and Cultures from Concordia University, he moved to the Petite Patrie-Rosemont neighbourhood in Montreal in 2004. Together with his wife and neighbours, he founded the alternative school Le Vitrail in 2015. His film about urban pilgrims in Tokyo and Osaka, produced with Jean-Marc Abela (Shugendô Now), won the David Plath Award in 2011 for best educational media.