John Robert Colombo, CM (born March 24, 1936) is a Canadian writer, editor, and poet.

[3] He also facilitated the appearance of first books of fiction written by Hugh Hood and Alice Munro, as well as the first mass-market publication of a science-fiction story by Robert J. Sawyer.

He later moved into editorial positions with prominent Toronto's publishing houses, including McClelland and Stewart and Hurtig.

During this period, he edited George Grant's Lament for a Nation, and served as managing editor of the Tamarack Review, then the leading literary quarterly.

[4] His anthology writing earned him the nickname "the Master Gatherer" among Canadian writers and literary critics.