Robert Repino Books in Order

Robert Repino grew up in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, a suburb outside Philadelphia. As a child, he was drawn to the kind of strange, playful stories that later show up in his fiction. One of the first stories he remembers writing was about turkeys taking over the world, a pretty clear early hint of where his imagination was headed.

Friday-night movie choices with his brother included plenty of 1980s science fiction. He made up adventures about superheroes and aliens, but writing still didn't feel like a job a person could choose.

He studied history at St. Joseph's University and, after graduation, joined the Peace Corps. From 2000 to 2002 he lived in Grenada, where he taught at a vocational school. The work mattered to him, but it also helped him see that a career as a high-school teacher wasn't the right fit.

Back in Pennsylvania, Repino worked at St. Joseph's University Press while pushing ahead with two novels of his own. He was accepted into Emerson College's creative writing program and earned an MFA there. That change gave his writing a more direct path forward.

He kept writing the odd stuff.

His first published novel, Mort(e), arrived in 2015. It begins with a war between humans and animals altered into self-aware fighters by a colony of ants, then follows a former housecat turned soldier. The later War With No Name books, Culdesac, D'Arc, and Malefactor, return to the damaged world left by that conflict, asking what loyalty, belief, survival, and peace look like after everything familiar has been torn apart.

Repino also writes for younger readers. In Spark and the League of Ursus, a teddy bear named Spark protects her child from monsters with help from a secret society of warrior toys. Spark and the Grand Sleuth sends Spark back into danger as the threat behind the portals grows. The books keep the action moving, but they also make room for friendship, bravery, and the tender bond between children and beloved toys.

Even the teddy bears have a job to do.

His shorter work includes the novellas Leap High Yahoo and Free the Man. The first is a near-future corporate dystopia set around an evacuated Philadelphia, while the second looks at the rules and pressures built around a schoolyard game. His short fiction has appeared in a range of literary magazines, and he has also written essays about science fiction, fantasy, movies, and popular culture.

Alongside writing, Repino works as an editor at Oxford University Press and has taught through Gotham Writers Workshop. His author bio also preserves a more offbeat résumé note: he has pitched for the press's softball team and played quarterback for its flag-football team. It suits an author whose books can move from apocalyptic animal warfare to monster-fighting stuffed toys without losing their sense of play.