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Robert Runté is Senior Editor with EssentialEdits.ca, where he edits academic writing, and freelances at SFeditor.ca where he edits science fiction and fantasy. A former professor, he has won four Aurora Awards for his literary criticism and currently reviews for the Ottawa Review of Books. The late Dave Duncan called him "the best editor I've ever worked with" and willed his incomplete manuscripts to Robert to finish. (Two of these novels have now been published by Shadowpaw Press.) During Dr. Runté's career as an academic, he co-edited Tesseracts 5 an anthology of original Canadian speculative fiction, and Thinking About Teaching, a popular university textbook. One essay from that text has been downloaded over 37,000 times. He also published The NCF Guide to Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy and Writing Strategies for Thesis and Dissertations as free online resources. As a thesis supervisor and committee member, he has helped students write award- and scholarship-winning theses, and two of the theses he supervised were subsequently published as books. In terms of his own writing, his short fiction has been published over 130 times in a variety of venues. Six of his stories were reprinted in "best of" collections and one story was short listed for an Aurora Award. He claims to be making the necessary revisions to his novel but editing other people’s books is obviously way easier. Robert lives in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada with his wife, two daughters, and three dogs. You can see Robert in a two-minute video about acquiring and developing books or listen to his thirty-minute speech on English teachers, fan fiction, and the future of publishing. |
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Recent publications:
- "Split Decision", Twin Flame Literary, September 2025.
- "Fami's Dissertation Defense", AntipodeanSF, January 21, 2025.
- "An Isolated Case", Occult Detective Magazine #10, Summer 2023, pp. 157-167.
- "Inuksuk", Metastellar, May 31, 2023. [Free to read online]
- First Day on Night Shift", On Spec Magazine, Vol 33, #1, Issue #123, May, 2023, pp 6-16.
- "Day Three", The Flash Fiction Podcast, Manawalker Studios, March 16, 2023. [Free to listen to online.]
Interview with Robert Runté
about his story "The Family Home"
Honorable Mention for The Scribes Prize 2025
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What draws you to the micro-fiction format?
I am by nature a very verbose writer and editors kept telling me I had to 'tighten up' my writing, so I started writing micro fiction to learn how to cut out some of the wordiness. I think it has helped!
Who are some authors that inspire you?
Terry Pratchett, Dave Duncan, Matt Hughes, Karl Schroeder, and Premee Mohamed.
What's next on the horizon for you?
My novel is with my editor, so I'm looking forward to getting that back and do the revisions before sending it off to a publisher. (I've the offer of a three-book deal if I can just finish the damn thing.)
Which is easier, writing or editing?
You'd think being an editor would make me a better writer, but it is way easier to spot the strengths and weaknesses in someone else's manuscript and know how to take them to the next level, than it is to judge one's own drafts. One always worries about the wrong passages, reworking them to death, while on the next page is a plot hole you could drive a truck through or just clumsy writing. Editing is work, but writing well is harder.
I am by nature a very verbose writer and editors kept telling me I had to 'tighten up' my writing, so I started writing micro fiction to learn how to cut out some of the wordiness. I think it has helped!
Who are some authors that inspire you?
Terry Pratchett, Dave Duncan, Matt Hughes, Karl Schroeder, and Premee Mohamed.
What's next on the horizon for you?
My novel is with my editor, so I'm looking forward to getting that back and do the revisions before sending it off to a publisher. (I've the offer of a three-book deal if I can just finish the damn thing.)
Which is easier, writing or editing?
You'd think being an editor would make me a better writer, but it is way easier to spot the strengths and weaknesses in someone else's manuscript and know how to take them to the next level, than it is to judge one's own drafts. One always worries about the wrong passages, reworking them to death, while on the next page is a plot hole you could drive a truck through or just clumsy writing. Editing is work, but writing well is harder.
Interview with Robert Runté
about his story "Cabin Fever"
Honorable Mention for The Scribes Prize 2024
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What draws you to the micro-fiction format?
Karen Schauber invited me to contribute a 500-word flash fiction to The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings. It was the first time I attempted a complete story in such a short format, and editor Karen was an immense help tightening my drafts. Once I had successfully completed that task, I thought, well, why stop there? Drabbles called to me. I almost immediately became addicted to the form, and write regularly for ScribesMICRO and other 100-word markets. Of course, the real motivation for concentrating on short and micro-fiction is as an excuse to avoid working on the novel.
Who are some authors that inspire you?
My favorite authors are Matthew Hughes, Dave Duncan, Guy Gavrial Kay, and John Linwood Grant. I highly recommend any of their books, but particularly Hughes What the Wind Brings, Duncan’s Man of His Word Series, Kay’s Tigana, and Linwood’s The Assassin’s Coin. None of them publish micro-fiction, though.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I’m trying to motivate myself to work on the second draft of my novel, but given the earliest outline is dated 1971, I first put pen to paper in 2008, and finished the first draft in 2016, no one is expecting me to be done anytime soon. As an editor, I am frequently frustrated when my clients resist doing the work to make their book the best it can be. As a writer, I totally get it.
You're better known as a speculative fiction editor than as a writer. How has being a writer helped you be a better editor and vice versa?
Being an editor absolutely hasn’t helped me be a better writer. One cannot editor themselves, at least not completely. I sincerely believe everything I write is either hilarious or edge-of-the-seat action. It takes seeing my beta readers face-palm to realize there may still be some areas that could use refinement.
But being a writer has absolutely made me a better fiction editor. As a writer myself, I feel their pain when I ask them to take out a redundant character, or develop the subtext, or rewrite whole chapters. I suddenly understood why making even ‘easy’ changes can feel like way too much work sometimes.
Karen Schauber invited me to contribute a 500-word flash fiction to The Group of Seven Reimagined: Contemporary Stories Inspired by Historic Canadian Paintings. It was the first time I attempted a complete story in such a short format, and editor Karen was an immense help tightening my drafts. Once I had successfully completed that task, I thought, well, why stop there? Drabbles called to me. I almost immediately became addicted to the form, and write regularly for ScribesMICRO and other 100-word markets. Of course, the real motivation for concentrating on short and micro-fiction is as an excuse to avoid working on the novel.
Who are some authors that inspire you?
My favorite authors are Matthew Hughes, Dave Duncan, Guy Gavrial Kay, and John Linwood Grant. I highly recommend any of their books, but particularly Hughes What the Wind Brings, Duncan’s Man of His Word Series, Kay’s Tigana, and Linwood’s The Assassin’s Coin. None of them publish micro-fiction, though.
What's next on the horizon for you?
I’m trying to motivate myself to work on the second draft of my novel, but given the earliest outline is dated 1971, I first put pen to paper in 2008, and finished the first draft in 2016, no one is expecting me to be done anytime soon. As an editor, I am frequently frustrated when my clients resist doing the work to make their book the best it can be. As a writer, I totally get it.
You're better known as a speculative fiction editor than as a writer. How has being a writer helped you be a better editor and vice versa?
Being an editor absolutely hasn’t helped me be a better writer. One cannot editor themselves, at least not completely. I sincerely believe everything I write is either hilarious or edge-of-the-seat action. It takes seeing my beta readers face-palm to realize there may still be some areas that could use refinement.
But being a writer has absolutely made me a better fiction editor. As a writer myself, I feel their pain when I ask them to take out a redundant character, or develop the subtext, or rewrite whole chapters. I suddenly understood why making even ‘easy’ changes can feel like way too much work sometimes.