Q: Like Who Runs the World, where disease has all but wiped out men, your earlier books The Rain and The Storm are also set in a world where something has collapsed (the environment). (That's in addition to the characters who think and behave in it, and the ideas and moods I'm trying to put across.) (Writing is tricky!) What I'm trying to achieve is the creation of a world that absorbs you in every way so you see it, smell it, touch it, hear it - even taste it.

there are no pictures in my books, but if I describe a scene well enough the reader should be able to 'see' it - and this visual element is very important to me. Listening makes you humble.ĭocumentary scriptwriting taught me to drive a story forward because you need to hold on to viewers! And I learned how stories can be told visually. I interviewed dozens - perhaps hundreds? - of adults and young people about some very sensitive subjects, such as mental health and criminal behaviour, and heard stories that would make your heart bleed and your hair stand on end. Q: You studied and worked in psychology and film writing before you became a YA author - how have these disciplines/interests influenced how you write now?Ī: Working as a research psychologist taught me to listen non-judgementally - and to understand that everyone has their story. We asked author VIRGINIA BERGIN - author of THE RAIN - to tell us more about WHO RUNS THE WORLD. By finding the boy and beginning to unearth his past, they start to uncover the terrible secrets that lie at the heart of their society.

He has never seen a girl she has never seen a boy. The story is set two generations from the time of the disease and follows River, a 14-year-old girl, who discovers a sick teenaged boy near her village.

It is set in a world that is run by women, not by men, after a disease that killed only men has destroyed the world as we know it. WHO RUNS THE WORLD? is an intriguing and powerful exploration of gender, loss and hope. Since then she has written poetry, short stories, film and TV scripts. She went on to study psychology before rediscovering creative writing.

Virginia Bergin grew up in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, where she learned to roller-skate with the children of eminent physicists.

The rain by virginia bergin