Virna Woods

{{Short description|American author and playwright}}

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Virna Woods ({{date|26 April 1864|MDY}} – {{fdate|6 March 1903|MDY}}) was an American author, poet, and playwright.

Virna Woods was born on {{date|26 April 1864|MDY}} in Wilmington, Ohio, the daughter of John Brookins Woods and Virginia Alice Pidgeon. She was raised in Zanesville, Ohio. She relocated to California in 1883 and worked as a schoolteacher in Sacramento, California.{{Cite book |last=Coyle |first=William |url=http://archive.org/details/ohioauthorstheir00coyl |title=Ohio authors and their books: biographical data and selective bibliographies for Ohio authors, native and resident, 1796–1950 |date=1962 |publisher=Cleveland, New York, The World Pub. Co |others=University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign}}{{Cite book |last=Hinkel |first=Edgar Joseph |url=http://archive.org/details/biographiesofcal01hink |title=Biographies of California authors and indexes of California literature |last2=McCann |first2=William E. |last3=Alameda County Free Library |last4=United States. Work Projects Administration |date=1942 |publisher=Oakland, Calif. |others=San Francisco Public Library}}

Most of her work is set in California. Her novels include Jason Hildreth's Identity, which appeared in Lippincott's Monthly in 1897.{{Cite news |date=June 6, 1897 |title=Virna Woods |pages=23 |work=San Francisco call |url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85066387/1897-06-06/ed-1/seq-23/}}

She created a stage adaptation of Strathmore by Ouida, produced in San Francisco in 1903 starring Virginia Drew Trescott.{{Cite news |date=1903-03-07 |title=MISS VIRNA WOODS DEAD. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1903/03/07/archives/miss-virna-woods-dead.html |access-date=2023-05-15 |issn=0362-4331}}

Virna Woods died of pneumonia on March 6, 1903, in Sacramento.