MaryJo Werthman White is an Ohio poet and fiction writer.
Her poems have appeared in The Dayton Daily News and The Yellow Springs News as well as in local and national journals and anthologies. They have been read on public radio station WYSO. Her poetry collection, How the Universe Says Yes to Me, was published by Main Street Rag Press in 2017.
In 2006, she was awarded the Paul Laurence Dunbar Poetry Prize. One of her poems, “On Hawkins Road,” was chosen by Billy Collins as the adult winner of Borders’ 2009 national on-line poetry contest. In 2012, she was the recipient of Antioch Writers’ Workshop’s Judson Jerome Poetry Prize and Scholarship. Her first novel, An Invitation to the Party, arrived summer 2023, published by Regal House Publishing. She is working on a second novel also set in the village of Haven.
MJ retired from Yellow Springs Schools and lives in Xenia, Ohio with her excellent husband and the (mostly) good dog, Zaza. In her spare time, she paints watercolors.
Author photo, thanks to the amazing Connie Gifford