Burying Beetle

Ann Kelley is a photographer and prize-winning poet who once nearly played cricket for Cornwall. She has previously published a collection of poems and photographs, a book of photos of St Ives families and an audio book of cat stories. She lives with her second husband and several cats on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall where they have survived a flood, a landslip, a lightning strike and the roof blowing off. She runs courses for aspiring poets at her home, writing courses for medics and medical students, and speaks about her poetry therapy work with patients at medical conferences.

Selected by Publishing News as Title of the Month for May 2005This is an atmospheric and beguiling book, written with a precision which guards it from sentimentality. - HELEN DUNMOREAcutely observed, tender, funny and very moving. - MICHAEL FOREMANGussie fairly fizzles with vitality, radiating fun and enjoyment into everything that comes her way. Her life may be predestined to be short but not short on wonder, glee, the love of things as they really are ... I hope Gussie's story sells a trillion, zillion copies. It deserves to. - MICHAEL BAYLEYI started reading it this morning before breakfast and ignored hunger pangs to finish it in great sadness. It's quite beautifully done. - SUE BAKER, PUBLISHING NEWS