Horstman judged student submissions to the 2008 Spectrum, the Northwestern College literary journal, and will meet individually with writers who placed in the competition. He also will read from his own writing Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. in the Allen Theatre of the DeWitt Theatre Arts Center. Copies of Spectrum will be available after the reading.

Horstman will speak again Thursday at 5 p.m. in room 2 of Granberg Hall on writing as a vocation and the current writing scene.

In addition to his book, Horstman has also published articles and short stories in magazines, including The Other Side. His articles like “Table Manners (Christian Lessons Gleaned From the Chaos of Eating With Children)” and “Dad’s Commandments”—with rules like “Bonk not thy brother with thy tennis racquet, again I say, bonk not”—combine humor, theology and common sense to offer answers to questions about how Christians might live faithfully day-to-day.

A 1987 graduate of Northwestern College, Horstman is an English professor at Bethel University in Minnesota. He earned a master’s degree from DePaul University and a doctorate from Purdue.