After earning a Bachelor of Arts from Vassar College in 1990, Hrbek taught kindergarten for three years in San Francisco and New York City, before studying for a Master of Fine Arts degree in English at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, which he completed in 1995.
[3][4] Since 2001, Hrbek has been teaching fiction writing courses as Writer-in-Residence at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, where he lives with his wife, son and daughter.
[1][5][6] In 1996, at the age of 27, Hrbek won the James Jones First Novel Award for his first novel in progress, The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly, a complex story of obsessive, lifelong love.
[2] He had worked on this book for two years at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and in California, and at Vassar while teaching.
His short story "Green World" (Harper's), was a finalist for the 1999 National Magazine Award in Fiction.