Catholic Author Wins National Web Award

(I-Newswire) September 28, 2005 - DAYTON, OH -- Catholic author and humorist, Tim Bete, has won the grand prize in the 2005 Writer's Digest Best Writer's Web Site contest. To be eligible for the contest, writers must have been solely responsible for creating, editing and maintaining their sites. Writer's Digest is the largest circulation magazine for writers.

"I'm thrilled to win but glad there's no trophy," says Bete, who is director of the University of Dayton's Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop and a former columnist for CatholicExchange.com. "The last time I won a trophy, my daughter stole it to use as a companion for her Barbie doll. That's what I get for not buying Ken for her."

The October 2005 issue of Writer's Digest says Bete's Web site -- www.TimBete.com -- is filled with "zesty humor," including "an anecdote about a failed modeling career and several pictures of John Malkovich (who may or may not be a dead ringer for Bete)."

Bete's Web site also includes excerpts from his book, In The Beginning...There Were No Diapers: Laughing and Learning in the First Years of Fatherhood (2005, Sorin Books). The book is a CatholicMom.com Book Club selection and hit #15 on Amazon.com's parenting humor bestseller list. A review from the Archdiocese of Boston's Office of Religious Education reads, "Not since Bill Cosby's book Fatherhood, has there been such a funny parenting book."

"Humor helps people reflect on their lives and can be very healing, especially for parents raising young children," says Bete. And he adds, children who drive their parents crazy are nothing new, speculating there must have been a thousand children present when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fish.

"By my calculation, 500 kids would have said they 'didn't like fish,'" says Bete. "Three hundred would have complained that their 'bread was touching their fish.' Two hundred kids would have whined that their fish was 'inedible without tartar sauce.' It's a miracle when you can get your kids to eat something that's good for them."

Bete's humor has also appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Sacramento Bee and more than a dozen parenting magazines. He is a contributor to the books, Chicken Soup for the Father & Daughter Soul, Amazing Grace for the Catholic Heart and Misadventures of Moms and Disasters of Dads. Bete is also the creator of HumorWriters.org, which was picked as one of the Best 101 Web Sites for Writers by Writer's Digest, and FlightHumor.org, which was picked by the Houston Chronicle as one of their 101 Favorite Travel Web Sites.

"For me, there is a difference between being a Catholic writer and writing about Catholic things," says Bete. "There are many members of the Body of Christ. I just happen to be the funny bone."

You can visit Bete's award-winning Web site at www.TimBete.com.

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