1995 in Australian literature

Events

• Helen Demidenko won the Miles Franklin Award for ''The Hand That Signed the Paper''

Major publications

Novels

• Carmel Bird – The White Garden
• Marshall Browne – The Gilded Cage
• Bryce Courtenay — The Potato Factory
• Beverley Farmer — The House in the Light
• Judith Fox – Bracelet Honeymyrtle
• Paul Horsfall – The Touchstone
• Rod Jones — Billy Sunday
• Thomas Keneally — A River Town
• Christopher Koch — Highways to a War
• Amanda Lohrey – Camille's Bread
• Alex Miller — The Sitters
• Mandy Sayer — The Cross
• Kathleen Stewart — ''Spilt Milk''

Crime and mystery

• Jon Cleary – Winter Chill
• John Dale — Dark Angel
• Garry Disher – Port Vila Blues
• Kerry Greenwood – Ruddy Gore
• Gabrielle Lord – Bones
• Barry Maitland — ''The Malcontenta''

Science fiction and fantasy

• David Brooks (author) — The House of Balthus
• Jack Dann — The Memory Cathedral: A Secret History of Leonardo da Vinci
• Sara Douglass — Battleaxe
• Greg Egan
• * Axiomatic
• * Distress
• * "Luminous"
• * "Mitochondrial Eve"
• * "TAP"
• * "Wang's Carpets"
• Paul Kidd — Mus of Kerbridge
• Garth Nix — Sabriel
• Gillian Rubinstein — Galax-Arena
• Tony Shillitoe — ''The Last Wizard''

Children's and young adult fiction

• Isobelle Carmody — Ashling
• Brian Caswell — Deucalion
• Mem Fox — Wombat Divine
• Sonya Hartnett — Sleeping Dogs
• Catherine Jinks — Witch Bank
• John Marsden — The Third Day, The Frost
• Garth Nix — ''Sabriel''

Poetry

• Jordie Albiston — Nervous Arcs
• Peter Bakowski — In The Human Night
• Dorothy Hewett — Collected Poems 1940–1995
• Philip Hodgins — ''Things Happen''

Drama

• Manny Aston — Fossils
• Joanna Murray-Smith — Honour
• Louis Nowra
• * The Incorruptible
• * Miss Bosnia
• David Williamson — ''Dead White Males''

Non-fiction

• Timothy Conigrave — Holding the Man
• Garfield Barwick — A Radical Tory: Garfield Barwick's Reflections and Recollections
• Helen Garner — ''The First Stone''

Awards and honours

• Christopher Koch "for service to Australian literature as a novelist"
• Alexander Stewart Cockburn "for service to journalism and literature"
• Bryce Courtenay "for service to advertising and marketing to the community and as an author"
• Mollie Gillen "for service to genealogy and to Australian historical research"
• Paul Jennings "for service to children's literature"
• Frances Margaret McGuire "for service to the community and to literature, particularly through the State Library of South Australia"
• Walter Richard McVitty "for service to the arts, particularly as educator and publisher of children's literature"
• Maurice Saxby "for service to children's literature"
• Gavin Souter "for service to Australian historical literature"
• Donald Wall "for service to the recorded history of World war II, particularly the history of the 8th Division and the fate of prisoners of war at Sandakan, Northern Borneo"
• Madeleine Ruby Irene Brunato-Arthur "for service to Australian writers, particularly through the Fellowship of Australian Writers in South Australia"

Fiction

International

Poetry

Drama

Deaths

• 13 January — Max Harris (poet), poet, critic, columnist, commentator, publisher and bookseller
• 25 January — Margaret Senior, wildlife and children's illustrator and writer
• 20 March — Russell Braddon, writer of novels, biographies and TV scripts
• 12 May — John Blight, poet
• 26 June — John Jefferson Bray, lawyer, judge, academic, university administrator, Crown officer and published poet,
• 17 July — Robert Close, novelist
• 7 August — Harold Stewart, poet and oriental scholar
• 14 August — Frances Margaret McGuire, writer, biochemist and philanthropist
• 18 August — Philip Hodgins, poet
• 5 December — Gwen Harwood, poet and librettist