Virginia Woodruff '05

Virginia Woodruff M.F.A. ’05 is a writer, website founder and mother of three active kids. Her new website, GreatMomentsInParenting.com, was a finalist for the 2013 SXSW Interactive Awards.

Great Moments in Parenting aims to bring humor and honesty back into the often-judgmental world of parenting. By encouraging regular moms and dads to reveal their embarrassing moments, the website offers parents and readers some comic relief on childrearing. Woodruff founded the website based on the idea that all parents are united by "the agony and the ecstasy of life with kids."

Woodruff previously worked as a journalist and a filmmaker. She has a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in English from the University of Texas, Austin, and an M.F.A. in film directing from UCLA. While at UCLA, she won the Jack Nicholson Distinguished Student Director Award and the Lynn Weston Fellowship for thesis scripts.

Though Woodruff is no longer a filmmaker, the skills she now employs everyday – perseverance, patience and teamwork – could only have come from the "what does not kill me makes me stronger" ethos she acquired in film school.

Like many parents, Woodruff has concerns about the invasive nature of digital media and has written about the digital revolution in family life. In her own life, she tries to put the phone away and be present when she is with her three children, a six-year-old son and twin three-year-old daughters.

Woodruff is working on a non-fiction book about the evolution of motherhood called Am I Doing This Right?: Why It's Harder to be a Mother Today Than It Was a Generation Ago.

Woodruff lives with her family in Austin, TX.