Dr Cassandra Atherton is an award winning writer and critic from Melbourne, Australia who is currently a Senior Lecturer in Literary Studies & Professional and Creative Writing at Deakin University. She completed her MA and PhD at the University of Melbourne. Cassandra was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University in 2015 – 2016, and was a Visiting Professor at Sophia University, Tokyo in 2014.

Dr Atherton recently judged the joanne burns microliterature award for Spineless Wonders.  From the submissions from this award, Cassandra has edited the forthcoming Landmarks: An Anthology of Microlit, to be published by Spineless Wonders in 2017. 

Cassandra has been invited to the Newcastle Writers Festival for the announcement of the winner of this award and to chair a panel on the politics of micro literature.