John Robert Colombo

John Robert Colombo, CM (born March 24, 1936) is nationally known as the Master Gatherer. He is among Canada's most prolific authors of serious books. He is a poet, anthologist, editor, essayist, humourist, author or editor of over 200 books, best known as a writer and compiler of reference works and editor of anthologies pertaining to Canadian culture, history and geography, and the fields of lore and literature, science fiction, fantasy, and horror; his Other Canadas was the first anthology of Canadian fantastic literature, and established that the genre did exist with characteristic features. He also co-edited Not to Be Taken at Night, the first anthology of Canadian fiction of horror and terror. He was a charter member of Hydra North, the country's first association of SF professionals (founded by Judith Merril). He has been called "Canada's Mr. Mystery" for over 30 compilations of told-as-true Canadian ghost stories, beginning with Mysterious Canada (1978). Part of this work is "The Native Series" which consists of six volumes of Native lore including now-standard studies of the Windigo and the Shaking Tent mystery.

In the past he served as an editor or editorial consultant to The Ryerson Press, McClelland & Stewart, and other publishing houses. He is a member of the editorial board of the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, a reprint publisher of Canadiana and classic pulp fiction, and he is proprietor of his own publishing imprint, Colombo & Company.

Colombo's most famous works compile quotations by Canadians about all subjects and about Canada by non-Canadians, in a format similar to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. In this regard he has been called John "Bartlett" Colombo. He has also been the country's most prolific compiler of told-as-true accounts of the supernatural and the paranormal, including ghost and UFO stories. He has written monographs on such parapsychological researchers as R.S. Lambert, George and Iris Owen, James Webb, and Denis Saurat (three volumes).

Colombo is a graduate of the University of Toronto in English and philosophy in 1959. He subsequently taught at Atkinson College and Glendon College, York University, Downsview, Ont., but is mainly known as an "editor-at-large." He is a recipient of the Centennial Medal, the Order of Cyril and Methodius (1st class), the Harbourfront Literary Award, a D.Litt. (h.c.) from York University and the Order of Canada. An occasional contributor to newspapers and magazines as well as radio and television, he hosted the six-part series Unexplained Canada on Space, which premiered in January 2006. He was chosen Humanist of the Year (2010) by the Humanist Association of Toronto.

Colombo has been a frequent commentator in the media. From 1990 to 2010 he led courses on presentation skills with Canada's "presentation guru," Peter Urs Bender, at the Canadian Management Centre, Toronto, Canada. Since the appearance of his three-volume collected poems in 2005, he has published each year a book-length selection of new poems that includes entries from his "dream diary."

A selection of his poetry is found at www.library.utoronto.ca/Canpoetry/colombo/ and his reviews and commentaries appear on www.gurdjieffbooks.wordpress.com. His website is www.colombo.ca.