Kate Walter is a NYC based freelance writer and author of two memoirs: Behind the Mask: Living Alone in the Epicenter ( 2021); Looking for a Kiss: A Chronicle of Downtown Heartbreak and Healing (2015). Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Newsday, New York Daily News, AM-NY, Next Avenue, the Advocate, the Village Sun and many other places. She taught writing at NYU and CUNY for three decades. Walter has documented her life in downtown Manhattan since 1975. She has been dubbed "that world's Samuel Pepys."