Author to read 'Before' at ECC

The Writers Center at Elgin Community College continues its 2007-08 reading series with novelist Joe Hurka who will read at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in room 191D of the Visual and Performing Arts Center, 1700 Spartan Drive, Elgin. Hurka is the author of "Before," his first novel.

The event is free and open to the public. A book sale and signing will follow the reading.

"Before" is a story about Jeri Posselt and his wife, Anna, survivors of the Nazi horrors in Czechoslovakia. One September night, on their street in Cambridge, Mass., they meet a neighbor, college student Tika Lafond. As night falls, readers meet another character who roams the neighborhood, entering the apartments of women to search for information about their lives. As night pushes toward morning, and this violent man focuses all his attention on Tika, Jeri must come to the aid of his young friend.

Hurka, winner of the 2001 Pushcart Editors' Book Award for his memoir "Fields of Light: A Son Remembers His Heroic Father," received his graduate degree from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

After leaving graduate school, Hurka worked as a journalist, freelance writer, writer of jingles, public relations director and instructor of English at Elgin Community College. He currently teaches in Massachusetts at Tufts University and Emerson College.

Hurka has published short stories in "Ploughshares," "The Larcom Review," "Alaska Quarterly Review," "Flying Horse" and numerous other literary quarterlies. He also contributed the essay "Singing" to "The Darfur Anthology," a collection of work from 33 authors associated with the ECC Writers Center that was created to raise funds to benefit the millions of Sudanese residents displaced by the conflict.

For details, contact Rachael Tecza at (847) 214-7578 or rtecza@elgin.edu.