Sometimes I say black humor, but that’s only an aspect of it-not the whole deal. And I’m terrible (as many writers are) at answering the question of what I write about.

Well, I probably wouldn’t tell them I’m a writer unless they’d asked what I do, as I try not to force that info on people (and, I would suppose, Penguins). When they ask you what you write about, how do you answer? Two nuns and a penguin approach you at a bar, and you tell them you’re a writer. He teaches in the University of California Riverside/Palm Desert’s MFA program and received his own MFA from Vermont College.

His work has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, The Nervous Breakdown, Penthouse, The Rumpus, and ZYZZYVA, among other venues. Roberge is also a musician, singing and playing guitar in the Los Angeles-based band The Urinals. Liar has been excerpted by The Rumpus and praised in The LA Review of Books, Publisher’s Weekly, and Kirkus, and Roberge’s previous work earned him a spot on The Literary Review’s “Ten Writers Worth Knowing” list as well as the admiration of authors including Steve Almond, previous Fiction Points participant Stephen Elliott, Janet Fitch, and Cheryl Strayed. Rob Roberge is the author of the memoir Liar(2016), three novels– The Cost of Living(2013), More Than They Could Chew (2005), and Drive(2001)–and the short-story collection Working Backwards from the Worst Moment of My Life(2010).

Liar by Rob Roberge