A new father, by 1979 he had joined the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, and he worked as a journeyman until 1992.
In 1998, White was awarded the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters, a six-month residency at a ranch formerly belonging to writer J. Frank Dobie, an honor that has previously gone to such Texas writers as Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto Gilb, and Oscar Casares.