Hornfischer, a non-practicing member of the State Bar of Texas, is president of Hornfischer Literary Management, a literary agency in Austin, Texas, that represents authors of nonfiction books in a variety of subject areas, including current affairs, history, politics, biography, business, and popular science, among others. Clients include David Bellavia, James Bradley, H. W. Brands, Fred Burton, Susannah Charleson, Brandon Friedman, George Friedman, William H. Goetzmann, Don Graham, James L. Haley, Woody Holton, Annie Jacobsen, Governor Rick Perry, Ron Powers, Roy Spence and others. He is a member of the Authors Guild and the Texas Institute of Letters, and serves on the advisory board of the The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest, sponsored by the Mayborn Graduate School of Journalism at the University of North Texas.

• The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour (Bantam hardcover, 2004; Bantam trade paperback, 2005) ISBN 0-553-80257-7

• Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors (Bantam hardcover, 2006; Bantam trade paperback, 2007). ISBN 0-553-80390-5

• Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal (Bantam hardcover, forthcoming 2011). ISBN 978-0553-80670-0

Hornfischer is a 1987 graduate of Colgate University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with high honors in German. He received a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2001.