His story collection The Southern Cross, which won the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize,[3] was published in 2009 by Mariner Books. The contest was judged by Antonya Nelson, who called the story collection "a knockout winner." Hailed as a "storyteller of uncommon talent", Horack's stories are "artfully evoked and deeply felt"[4] and depict characters that are "vital, funny, and heartbreakingly human".[5]
His novel The Eden Hunter was published in August 2010 by Counterpoint and was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. Reviewer Sven Birkerts noted: "Horack, the author of a well-received story collection, The Southern Cross, writes luminous, clean prose... He has a poet’s tuned attentiveness, but never uses his sentences to preen."[6]