This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2005.
| Award | Author |
|---|---|
| Christopher Brennan Award[76] | Fay Zwicky |
| Patrick White Award[77] | Fay Zwicky |
| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Age Book of the Year[78] | Gay Bilson | Plenty: Digressions on Food | Lantern |
| ALS Gold Medal[79] | Gail Jones | Sixty Lights | Harvill Press |
| Colin Roderick Award[80] | Peter Temple | The Broken Shore | Text Publishing |
| Nita Kibble Literary Award[81] | Gay Bilson | Plenty | Lantern |
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commonwealth Writers' Prize[82] | Best Novel, SE Asia and South Pacific region | Andrew McGahan | The White Earth | Allen and Unwin |
| Best First Novel, SE Asia and South Pacific region | Larissa Behrendt | Home | University of Queensland Press |
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children's Book of the Year Award | Older Readers | Michael Gerard Bauer | The Running Man | Omnibus Books |
| Younger Readers | Sonya Hartnett | The Silver Donkey | Viking Books | |
| Picture Book | Alison Lester | Are We There Yet? A Journey Around Australia | Viking Books | |
| Early Childhood | Mem Fox, illus. Judy Horacek | Where is the Green Sheep? | Viking Books | |
| Davitt Award | Young Adult | Joanna Baker | Devastation Road | Lothian |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Children's | Sherryl Clark | Farm Kid | Puffin Books |
| Young People's | Steven Herrick | By the River | Allen and Unwin | |
| Queensland Premier's Literary Awards | Children's | Prue Mason | Camel Rider | Puffin Books |
| Young Adult | Joanne Horniman | Secret Scribbled Notebooks | Allen and Unwin | |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Award[88] | Young Adult Fiction | Scott Westerfeld | So Yesterday | Penguin Books |
| Western Australian Premier's Book Awards | Writing for Young Adults | Anthony Eaton | Fireshadow | University of Queensland Press |
| Children's | Joanne Crawford and Grace Fielding | A Home for Bilby | Magabala Books |
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Davitt Award[90] | Novel | Kathryn Fox | Malicious Intent | Macmillan |
| Readers' Choice | Leigh Redhead | Peepshow | Allen & Unwin | |
| Young Adult Novel | Joanna Baker | Devastation Road | Lothian | |
| Ned Kelly Award[91] | Novel | Michael Robotham | Lost | Time Warner Book Group |
| First novel | Malcolm Knox | A Private Man | Vintage Books | |
| True crime | Helen Garner | Joe Cinque's Consolation | Picador | |
| Tony Reeves | Mr Big | Allen & Unwin | ||
| Lifetime Achievement | Stuart Coupe |
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aurealis Award | Sf Novel | Damien Broderick | K-Machines | Thunder's Mouth Press |
| Sf Short Story | Sean Williams | The Seventh Letter | "Bulletin" Magazine, Summer Reading Edition | |
| Fantasy Novel | Juliet Marillier | Wildwood Dancing | Pan Macmillan | |
| Fantasy Short Story | Margo Lanagan | "A Fine Magic" | Eidolon Books (Eidolon I) | |
| Horror Novel | Will Elliott | The Pilo Family Circus | ABC Books | |
| Edwina Grey | Prismatic | Lothian Books | ||
| Horror Short Story | Stephen Dedman | "Dead of Winter" | Weird Tales | |
| Ditmar Award | Novel | Sean Williams | The Crooked Letter | Voyager |
| Novella/Novelette | Paul Haines | "The Last Days of Kali Yuga" | NFG Magazine | |
| Short Story | Margo Lanagan | "Singing My Sister Down" | Black Juice | |
| Collected Work | Margo Lanagan | Black Juice | Allen & Unwin | |
| Australian Shadows Award | Lee Battersby | "Father Muerte and the Flesh" | Aurealis |
| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature[83] | Not awarded | ||
| The Age Book of the Year[78] | Dipti Saravanamuttu | The Colosseum | Five Islands Press |
| Anne Elder Award[92] | Max Ryan | Rainswayed Night | Dangerously Poetic Press |
| Grace Leven Prize for Poetry[93] | Noel Rowe | Next to Nothing | Vagabond Press |
| Mary Gilmore Prize[94] | Not awarded | ||
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards[86] | Samuel Wagan Watson | Smoke Encrypted Whispers | University of Queensland Press |
| Queensland Premier's Literary Awards[87] | Sarah Day | The Ship | Brandl and Schlesinger |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Award[88] | M. T. C. Cronin | <More Or Less Than> 1-100 | Shearsman Books |
| Western Australian Premier's Book Awards[89] | Rod Moran | The Paradoxes of Water: Selected and New Poems, 1970-2005 | Salt Publishing |
| Award | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick White Playwrights' Award[95] | Wesley Enoch | The Story of the Miracles at Cookie's Table | Currency Press |
| Award | Category | Author | Title | Publisher |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature[83] | Non-Fiction | Not awarded | ||
| The Age Book of the Year[78] | Non-fiction | Gay Bilson | Plenty: Digressions on Food | Lantern |
| National Biography Award[96] | Biography | Robert Hillman | The Boy in the Green Suit | Scribe Publications |
| New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards | Non-fiction | John Hughes | The Idea of Home: Autobiographical Essays | Giramondo Publishing |
| New South Wales Premier's History Awards | Australian History | Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller | Degenerates and Perverts: the 1939 Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art | Melbourne University Publishing |
| Community and Regional History | Joe Hajdu | Samurai in the Surf: the Arrival of the Japanese on theGold Coast in the 1980s | Pandanus Books | |
| General History | Sally Neighbour | In the Shadow of Swords: on the Trail of Terrorism from Afghanistan to Australia | HarperCollins | |
| Young People's | Allan Baillie | My Story: Riding with Thunderbolt, the Diary of Ben Cross | Scholastic Press | |
| Nita Kibble Literary Award | Gay Bilson | Plenty: Digressions on Food | Lantern | |
| Queensland Premier's Literary Awards | Non-fiction | Geoffrey Bardon and James Bardon | Papunya – A Place Made After the Story | Miegunyah Press |
| History | Shane White and Graham White | The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering AfricanHistory Through Songs, Sermons and Speech | Beacon Press | |
| Victorian Premier's Literary Award[88] | Non-fiction | Robert Dessaix | Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev | Picador |
Note: all references relating to awards can, or should be, found on the relevant award's page.