Merle White is Editorial Director of Interweave's Gem & Jewelry Group and Editor-in-Chief of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist. She has been with the magazine since 1985, when she started as Lapidary Journal's Managing Editor. She has launched several related magazines, most notably Step by Step Wire Jewelry, and oversaw the initial development of workshops at numerous Bead Fest events.
She holds a B.A. in Music and Classics but, liking to eat on a regular basis, has always worked in publishing. She dabbles in gems, jewelry, and minerals, and has enormous respect for those who have mastered these fields while believing she is best suited to producing editorial content.
In 1993, Merle married John White, former Curator-in-Charge of Mineral Sciences at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, who still likes to say that "if she thought she was going to silence her chief critic by marrying him, it didn't work." They live in rural Pennsylvania where they enjoy competitive gardening and keeping the local nurseries in business.