User:Fibreloop

Cathy Drinkwater Better is a longtime professional journalist and columnist, author, and editor, and a widely published poet in many genres and forms. Since 1976, her poetry and other work has been seen in print and online literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, Romania, and Japan; as well as translated for markets in South America. She has won numerous awards for poetry and journalism, including awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Maryland Professional Chapter; LCNI, Inc.; The Catholic Press Association; and the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Association.

Better is the author of nearly three dozen published books for children and adults, including three collections of poetry: the moon tonight (Los Hombres Press, 1996); and the sky is all there is (Astute Platypus Press, 1999); and the set cat and human (Black Cat Press, 2002). Her first trade book, Don't Hit Your Brother With Your Mouth Full (Acme Press, 1995) is a collection of 44 pieces taken from the first ten years of her long-running and award-winning newspaper humor column. Test Your Bible I.Q. (Random House Value Publishing, 1999) contains more than 1,200 bits of Bible trivia in Q&A and puzzle formats. Her children’s books include hardcover picture books written in rhyme (Excuse Me!: A Book All About Manners, Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001; and In His Footsteps, Concordia Publishing House, 2000); and many other early-learning, board-book, pop-up, and activity sets, including several series of Cuddly Beasties™ early-learning pop-up books and the Wonders of Learning Deluxe Schoolhouse Activity Set (Concordia Publishing House, 1999).

Better’s diverse professional career consists of: many years as a reporter, photographer, and weekly humor columnist for a number of daily and weekly newspapers in Maryland and Kentucky; a three-year stint as a labor union communications specialist/writer/photographer; editorial director, editor, project manager and in-house author for an international book producer on projects ranging from children’s books and combination products to books on health and healing modalities, religion and New Age philosophy, history, modern-day culture, historical reprints, and more; and production editor for the world’s largest producer of medical, technical, and scientific journals. Under her married name, Cathy Walker, she has been the editor of The Medical Bulletin, a group of newspapers for physicians published in the Maryland, Washington, D.C., Northern Virginia, and San Francisco Bay-Monterey-Napa Valley areas, since 2002.

In 2006 Better marked 22 years as an award-winning newspaper and magazine humor columnist for newspapers and magazines. Currently she pens a bi-weekly humor column for a two weekly newspapers in the Central Maryland region, The Eldersburg Eagle and The Westminster Eagle, both owned by Patuxent Publishing Company; and freelances humor to region and national publications. She continues to freelance as an editor, writer, and photographer for print, digital, and online media projects. With her husband, Doug Walker, Better owns Black Cat Press, which publishes and produces editions of Japanese poetic forms—including haiku, tanka, and senryu—by individual poets as well as anthology collections.

Better has taught creative writing for children and adults, through private arts organizations, local schools, government agencies, and the continuing education division of Baltimore County (Maryland) Public Schools and the Community College of Baltimore County (Maryland). She also has served as a guest speaker and presenter on a wide variety of writing and editorial topics for groups and organization. A second-degree black belt in shorinji-ryu kenkokan karatedo and an instructor in Yang Style long from t’ai chi ch’uan, she spent many years as a martial arts instructor. She is the co-founder of the Haiku Poets of Central Maryland.