Walbert was born in New York City but raised in Georgia, Texas, Japan, and Pennsylvania. After graduating from Choate Rosemary Hall, she attended Northwestern University’s School of Communication before earning a master’s degree in English from NYU. Among other publications, her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, and The Paris Review, and has twice been included in The Best American Short Stories and the O. Henry Awards. She has published one short story collection and four novels. Her first novel, The Gardens of Kyoto, received the Connecticut Book Award in fiction and was a finalist for the IMPAC/Dublin award.

Walbert was a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Connecticut Commission on the Arts Fellowship. From 2011-2012, she was a Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the NY Public Library.

Kate Walbert (born August 13, 1961) is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in New York City. Her novel Our Kind was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. Her novel A Short History of Women, a New York Times bestseller, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Book Award and named one of the ten best books of 2009 by the New York Times.