PATRICIAN Press are organising not one but three launches for their latest anthology.

But when it deals with such a hot topic as Europe, perhaps that’s little surprise.

My Europe follows on from the Mistley publishers previous book, Refugees and Peacekeepers, which was put together following a competition to find suitable submissions.

This time around, Patricia Borlenghi, who runs the Press, decided to contact writers, poets, politicians and journalists direct, and was more than a little surprised when a plethora of pieces came flooding back.

She says: “The idea came a few days after the referendum result when I was thinking to myself ‘how can this be? How can we have voted to leave the EU?

“A few days later I was still thinking about it and I thought the best way of dealing with this is perhaps get a whole collection of views on Europe.

“Political views of Europe, personal views of Europe and how some of us are intrinsically entwined with Europe because of their backgrounds.”

Gazette: Poet - Mark Brayley (left) who edited the poems for Patrician’s Press’ new anthology My Europe.

The result is Patrician Press’ My Europe, a collection of poems, short stories and essays including contributions by Canon Giles Frazer, Helena Kennedy QC, Lemn Sissay, George Szirtes and Stephen Timms MP.

Anna Johnson, whom edited the book, says: “We had more than 40 submissions in all which we eventually got down to 24.

“Poet Mark Brayley, who contributed to the anthology with his poem, The Festival of Janus, edited the poems, while I looked after the other pieces.

“We were particularly interested in getting a good balance of poems with articles and stories, and we even had some scripted dialogue.

“For my part My Europe is one attempt to get the story straight, to explore the idea and the reality of Europe and our place in it, through a variety of sources – expert scrutiny, fiction, poetry, drama and personal testimony.”

Next month Patrician Press is organising three events to celebrate My Europe’s publication, which officially takes place on March 23.

The first is at the Wivenhoe Bookshop in the High Street as part of the Essex Book Festival on March 2 at 6.30pm when readings will be given by contributors Mark Brayley, Anna Johnson, Petra McQueen and Ken Smith.

The main book launch will be at 6pm on March 8 at the University of Westminster in Regent’s Street, hosted by Contemporary Small Press, and then the final event will be at 2.30pm on March 11 at the Firstsite Gallery in Colchester when there will be a panel discussion on Europe and the Arts chaired by Mark Brayley and made-up of arts centre director Anthony Roberts, contributor Uwe Derksen, artist Joanna Jones and Colchester novelist Liz Trenow.

For more information go to patricianpress.com