'I am a stranger in this world' says the nun, the narrator of a story of a forbidden book by Marguerite Porete. The year is 1340, thirty years after Marguerite was burned at the stake for writing and disseminating her heretical work, The Mirror of Simple Souls. The place is England, a Cistercian nunnery where she tells her story the night before her death, knowing that the book irretrievably changed but also shortened her life. But the idea of being a stranger in the world is not an uncommon one for many other Michele Roberts' characters. From the early feminists to postmodern protagonists her novels rewrite medieval saints and sinners, Victorian mediums and contemporary visionaries, offering us new perspectives on well known stories and motifs.

Michele Roberts' prose and poetry as well as Sarah Salih's research on sainthood and virginity were the inspiration for 9th Literature in English Symposium held in Poznan, Poland. We are currently seeking for academic papers to be published in SILiE (Studies in Literature in English; published by Lang), which are devoted to Roberts' and Salih's works as well as topics, such as female saints and sinners, postmodernism, (post-)feminism, and medievalism. The categories suggest possibilities but are by no means exhaustive. The deadline for complete paper submissions is 20th September 2013. Please send your paper and a short bio to Dr. Katarzyna Bronk (kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pl and bbronkk@gmail.com). Authors will be informed about the results by 20th October 2013.