2008 in Australian literature

Events

• "The Bulletin" magazine publishes its last issue, the first was in 1880
• The Australia Council for the Arts announces Christopher Koch and Gerald Murnane as recipients of its 2008 emeritus writers awards
• The Australian Federal Government announces funding for a new chair of Australian Literature based at the University of Western Australia
• Clunes, Victoria, holds its second Booktown weekend
• The first Crime and Justice Festival in held in Melbourne over the weekend of 19–20 July
• Australia wins the right to host the 2010 World SF convention in Melbourne
• A number of previously unknown Banjo Paterson poems are found in an old cash book dating back to the Boer War
• UNESCO names Melbourne as its second City of Literature, after Edinburgh received the first such award in 2004
• Caro Llewellyn, a former director of the Sydney Writers' Festival and PEN World Voices Festival in New York, is appointed as director of the new Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas in Melbourne
• The Indie Book Awards are presented for the first time

Major publications

Literary fiction

• Debra Adelaide – The Household Guide to Dying
• Murray Bail – The Pages
• Geraldine Brooks – People of the Book
• Peter Carey – His Illegal Self
• Luke Davies – God of Speed
• Robert Drewe – The Rip
• Richard Flanagan – Wanting
• Helen Garner – The Spare Room
• Peter Goldsworthy – Everything I Knew
• Kate Grenville – The Lieutenant
• Vicki Hastrich – The Great Arch
• Wendy James – The Steele Diaries
• Susan Johnson – Life in Seven Mistakes
• Toni Jordan – Addition
• Sofie Laguna – One Foot Wrong
• Nam Le – The Boat
• Joan London – The Good Parents
• Louis Nowra – Ice
• Kevin Rabelais – The Landscape of Desire
• Claire Thomas – fugitive blue
• Steve Toltz – A Fraction of the Whole
• Ian Townsend – The Devil's Eye
• Christos Tsiolkas – The Slap
• Tim Winton – Breath
• Arnold Zable – ''Sea of Many Returns''

Children's and young adult fiction

• Isobelle Carmody – The Stone Key
• Kate Constable – Always Mackenzie
• Alison Croggon — The Singing
• Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury – Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
• Jackie French – A Rose for the ANZAC Boys
• Mark Greenwood and Frane Lessac – Simpson and His Donkey
• Sonya Hartnett – Sadie and Ratz
• Jack Heath – Money Run
• Simone Howell – Everything Beautiful
• Catherine Jinks – Genius Squad
• Maureen McCarthy – Somebody's Crying
• Melina Marchetta – Finnikin of the Rock
• Sophie Masson – The Case of the Diamond Shadow
• Garth Nix – Superior Saturday
• Penni Russon – The Indigo Girls
• Shaun Tan – Tales from Outer Suburbia
• Lili Wilkinson – The Perfect Boyfriend
• Sean Williams
• * The Changeling
• * ''Dust Devils''

Crime and mystery

• Peter Corris – Open File
• Leah Giarratano – Voodoo Doll
• Kerry Greenwood – Murder on a Midsummer Night
• Marion Halligan – Murder on the Apricot Coast
• Jarad Henry – Blood Sunset
• Katherine Howell – The Darkest Hour
• Barry Maitland – Bright Air
• PD Martin – Fan Mail
• Camilla Nelson – Crooked
• Malla Nunn – A Beautiful Place to Die
• Alex Palmer – The Tattooed Man
• Bronwyn Parry – As Darkness Falls
• Kel Robertson – Smoke and Mirrors
• Michael Robotham – ''Shatter''

Romance

• Anne Gracie – The Stolen Princess
• Stephanie Laurens – The Edge of Desire
• Margaret Leigh – The Heart Divided
• Estelle Pinney – ''Burnt Sunshine''

Science fiction and fantasy

• K. A. Bedford – Time Machines Repaired While-U-Wait
• Honey Brown – Red Queen
• Nathan Burrage – Fivefold
• Sara Douglass – The Twisted Citadel
• Greg Egan
• * "Crystal Nights"
• * Dark Integers and Other Stories
• * Incandescence
• * "Lost Continent"
• Jennifer Fallon – The Chaos Crystal
• Pamela Freeman – Deep Water
• Alison Goodman – The Two Pearls of Wisdom
• Traci Harding – The Dragon Queens
• Simon Haynes – Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch
• Margo Lanagan – Tender Morsels
• Juliet Marillier – Heir to Sevenwaters
• Karen Miller – Hammer of God
• K. E. Mills – The Accidental Sorcerer
• Cat Sparks – "Sammarynda Deep"
• Sean Williams – ''Earth Ascendant''

Drama

• John Doyle – The Pig Iron People
• Alexandra Edmondson – Cruising
• Joanna Murray-Smith – ''Ninety''

Poetry

• Robert Adamson – The Golden Bird: New and Selected Poems, winner of the C.J. Dennis Prize for Poetry in the 2009 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, shortlisted for the 2009 Age Book of the Year Awards
• Michael Brennan – Unanimous Night
• David Brooks – The Balcony, finalist for the 2008 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry; University of Queensland Press,
• Brook Emery – At a Slight Angle: and Other Poems
• Jamie Grant – 100 Australian Poems You Need to Know
• Elizabeth Hodgson – Skin Painting, winner of the 2007 David Unaipon Award; University of Queensland Press,
• Sarah Holland-Batt – Aria
• Clive James – Opal Sunset: Selected Poems, 1958–2008
• John Kinsella – Divine Comedy, University of Queensland Press,
• Anthony Lawrence – Bark, University of Queensland Press,
• David Malouf – Revolving Days, University of Queensland Press,
• Peter Rose editor – The Best Australian Poems 2008 Black Inc.,
• Alan Wearne – ''The Australian Popular Songbook''

Non-fiction

• Germaine Greer – On Rage
• Chloe Hooper – The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island
• John Silvester and Andrew Rule – ''Underbelly: The Gangland War''

Biographies

• Peter Costello – The Costello Memoirs
• Jacqueline Kent – An Exacting Heart: The Story of Hephzibah Menuhin
• Andrew Riemer – ''A Family History of Smoking''

Awards and honours

Drama

Deaths

• 11 January – Nancy Phelan, author
• 27 March – Alan Collins, short story writer
• 8 April – John Button, politician and author
• 26 April – Pamela Bone, journalist and author
• 29 April – John Hooker, author
• 21 June – Justina Williams, poet
• 24 August – Patricia Rolfe, short story writer and critic
• 30 September – Eleanor Spence, writer for children
• 30 October – Jacob Rosenberg, poet and memoirist
• 15 November – Ivan Southall, writer for children
• 10 December – Dorothy Porter, poet