2013 in Australian literature

Events

• James Ley launches the Sydney Review of Books to provide "an opportunity for Australia's critics to rediscover the art of literary criticism".
• The longlist for the inaugural Stella Prize is announced.
• The shortlist of the Miles Franklin Award contains only female writers for the first time.
• Nicole Bourke, writing under the pseudonym "N. A. Sulway", becomes the first Australian writer to win the James Tiptree, Jr. Award for her novel Rupetta.
• Aora Children's Literature Research Centre in Sydney closes after 12 years of operation.

  Major publications

Literary fiction

• Debra Adelaide – Letter to George Clooney
• Steven Carroll – A World of Other People
• J. M. Coetzee – The Childhood of Jesus
• Richard Flanagan – The Narrow Road to the Deep North
• Andrea Goldsmith – The Memory Trap
• Ashley Hay – The Railwayman's Wife
• Tom Keneally – Shame and the Captives
• Hannah Kent – Burial Rites
• Melissa Lucashenko – Mullumbimby
• Colleen McCullough – Bittersweet
• Fiona McFarlane – The Night Guest
• Alex Miller – Coal Creek
• Di Morrissey – The Winter Sea
• Cory Taylor – My Beautiful Enemy
• Christos Tsiolkas – Barracuda
• Felicity Volk – Lightning
• Tim Winton – Eyrie
• Alexis Wright – The Swan Book
• Evie Wyld – All The Birds, Singing

  Children's and young adult fiction

• Alyssa Brugman – Alex as Well
• J. C. Burke – Pretty Girl
• Kerry Greenwood – Evan's Gallipoli: A Gripping Story of Unlikely Friendship and an Incredible Journey behind Enemy Lines
• Richard Harland – Song of the Slums
• Karen Healey – When We Wake
• Melissa Keil – Life in Outer Space
• Fiona Anne Wood – Wildlife

  Science fiction and fantasy

• Max Barry – Lexicon
• Greg Egan – The Arrows of Time
• Jennifer Fallon – Reunion
• Traci Harding – Dreaming of Zhou Gong
• Simon Haynes – Hal Spacejock: Safe Art
• Fiona McIntosh – The Scrivener's Tale
• Juliet Marillier – The Caller
• James Phelan – 13
• N. A. Sulway – Rupetta

  Crime and mystery

• Honey Brown – Dark Horse
• Peter Corris – The Dunbar Case
• Garry Disher – Bitter Wash Road
• Karen Foxlee – The Midnight Dress
• Poppy Gee – Bay of Fires
• Katherine Howell – Web of Deceit
• Stuart Littlemore —Harry Curry: Rats and Mice
• Adrian McKinty – I Hear the Sirens in the Street
• Barry Maitland – The Raven's Eye
• Matthew Reilly – The Tournament
• Michael Robotham – Watching You
• Angela Savage – The Dying Beach
• David Whish-Wilson – Zero at the Bone
• Chris Womersley – Cairo

  Poetry

• Pamela Brown – Home by Dark
• Lisa Gorton
• *The Best Australian Poems 2013
• * Hotel Hyperion
• John Kinsella – The Vision of Error: A Sextet of Activist Poems
• Kate Middleton – Ephemeral Waters
• Geoff Page
• * 1953
• * New Selected Poems
• Dorothy Porter – The Best 100 Poems of Dorothy Porter
• Chris Wallace-Crabbe – New and Selected Poems

  Biography

• Alison Alexander – The Ambitions of Jane Franklin: Victorian Lady Adventurer
• Andrew Burell – Twiggy: The High-Stakes Life of Andrew Forest
• Gabrielle Carey – Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family
• Matthew Condon – Three Crooked Kings
• David Day – Flaws in the Ice: In Search of Douglas Mawson
• Stephen Dando-Collins – Sir Henry Parkes: The Australian Colossus
• Susanna de Vries – Australian Heroines of World War One: Gallipoli, Lemnos and the Western Front
• Jesse Fink – The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC
• Peter FitzSimons – Ned Kelly: The Story of Australia's Most Notorious Legend
• David Marr – The Prince: Faith, Abuse and George Pell
• Kristina Olsson – Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir
• Michael Pembroke – Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy
• John Safran – Murder in Mississippi: The True Story of How I Met a White Supremacist, Befriended His Black Killer and Wrote this Book
• Margaret Simons – Kerry Stokes: Self-Made Man
• Helen Trinca – Madeleine: A Life of Madeleine St. John
• Clare Wright – The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka

  Awards and honours

Lifetime achievement

Literary

Fiction

National

Children and young adult

National

Crime and mystery

National

Science fiction

Non-fiction

Poetry

Drama

Deaths

• 23 January – Graham Stone, bibliographer
• 23 May – Hazel Hawke, memoirist
• 16 July – Christopher Koch, novelist
• 9 October – Mark "Chopper" Read, writer