Famous Australian Short Story Writers

Henry Lawson was an Australian bush poet and writer. Often referred to as Australia's greatest short story writer, Lawson is one of the best-known Australian fiction writers and poets of the colonial period. Also a nationalist, Henry Lawson contributed immensely to a popular Australian magazine named The Bulletin. In 1949, he was featured in an Australian postage stamp.

Judith Wright was an Australian environmentalist, poet, and campaigner for Indigenous land rights. Wright is credited with founding one of the earliest environmental conservation movements in Australia. Best remembered for her poetry skills, Judith Wright won the prestigious Christopher Brennan Award in 1976. In 1991, she was honored with the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Australian-born American author Shirley Hazzard is best known for her Lost Man Booker Prize-shortlisted book The Bay of Noon and the National Book Award-winning The Great Fire. She has also penned various non-fiction volumes on the United Nations, where she had worked as a typist for a decade.

Elizabeth Jolley was an English-born Australian author who wrote 15 novels, three non-fiction books, and four short story collections after beginning to write at the age of 53. Jolley, who achieved significant critical acclaim for her work, also taught at Curtin University where she mentored several writers like Tim Winton. She also won several awards like National Book Council Award.

Martin Boyd was part of the famous Beckett–Boyd family of Australia, which defined much of the country’s culture, including literature. He initially served in the army and then began writing using the pseudonym Martin Mills. He is best remembered for his Australian saga The Montforts.

Thomas Alexander Browne was an Australian author better known by his pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood. His 1882 bushranging novel Robbery Under Arms is considered his best-known work. Despite having a busy career as a police magistrate and gold commissioner, he always devoted ample time to his literary pursuits and published several novels and short stories. 

Vance Palmer was an Australian novelist, dramatist, essayist, and critic. He loved to write from a young age and studied contemporary writing at the School of Arts. Later on, he married Nettie Higgins and they began to publish short stories, poetry, and criticism together. Palmer’s best-known work is The Legend of the Nineties. 

Geoffrey Dutton was an Australian author and historian. He studied at the University of Adelaide, where he started writing for the avant-garde journal Angry Penguins. He went on to have a prolific career, during which he wrote or edited over 200 books across a range of genres. He was a co-founder of the paperback publishing company Sun Books. 

Author Kylie Tennant won the S. H. Prior Memorial Prize with her first novel, Tiburon. She is also known for her novel The Battlers, apart from her travel writing and children’s books. Initially a journalist, she later conducted her own research on the downtrodden sections of Australia for her novels.

Hal Porter emerged as a writer during the WWII with a collection of short stories. However, it took him few more years to establish himself as a successful author, publishing his best work, a memoir entitled The Watcher on the Cast Iron Balcony, in 1963.  Also a successful poet and novelist he was made an AM for service to literature.

William Baylebridge aka Charles William Blocksidge was one of leading Australian writers of his time. Beginning his career with a booklet of verse entitled Songs o’ the South at the age of twenty-five, he went on to publish fifteen more books, containing poems and short stories, among which the best known are Love Redeemed, This Vital Flesh and Anzac Muster.