This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 2003.

• Peter Carey and Joan London join the list of authors who have withdrawn from contention for the Tasmania Pacific Region Prize. In 2002 Richard Flanagan and Tim Winton also declined to have their books nominated for the prize in protest at the involvement of Forestry Tasmania as a sponsor of the Ten Days on the Island festival at which the award winner is to be announced.^[1]
• Members of The Australian Society of Authors (ASA) voted in their Society's 40th anniversary poll to select Australia's favourite book. Tim Winton's Cloudstreet headed the poll followed by The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead and The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson.^[2]
• Nevil Shute's 1950 novel, A Town Like Alice was included in a BBC-sponsored UK survey of 100 popular novels, but has failed to make a similar Australian list.^[3]

• Alan Atwood – Burke's Soldier^[4]
• Peter Carey – My Life as a Fake
• Brian Castro – Shanghai Dancing
• J. M. Coetzee – Elizabeth Costello
• Julian Davies – The Boy^[5]
• Nikki Gemmell – The Bride Stripped Bare
• Peter Goldsworthy – Three Dog Night
• Shirley Hazzard – The Great Fire
• Kathryn Heyman – The Accomplice^[6]
• Janette Turner Hospital – Due Preparations for the Plague^[7]
• M. J. Hyland – How the Light Gets In^[8]
• Annamarie Jagose – Slow Water
• Nada A. Jarrar – Somewhere, Home^[9]
• Tom Keneally – The Tyrant's Novel
• Kathy Lette – Dead Sexy^[10]
• Colleen McCullough – The Touch
• Nerida Newton – The Lambing Flat
• Elliot Perlman – Seven Types of Ambiguity
• D. B. C. Pierre – Vernon God Little
• Patricia Shaw – The Five Winds^[11]
• Sue Woolfe – The Secret Cure^[12]

• Pamela Allen – Cuthbert's Babies
• Paul Collins – The Earthborn^[13]
• Kate Constable – The Waterless Sea
• Marianne Curley – The Dark^[14]
• Justin D'Ath – Shaedow Master^[15]
• Garry Disher – Eva's Angel^[16]
• John Heffernan – GBH^[17]
• Melina Marchetta – Saving Francesca^[18]
• David Metzenthen – Boys of Blood & Bone^[19]
• Jaclyn Moriarty – Finding Cassie Crazy^[20]
• Martine Murray – How to Make a Bird
• Garth Nix
  • Abhorsen
  • Mister Monday
• Emily Rodda – Rowan of the Bukshah
• Janeen Webb – The Silken Road to Samarkand^[21]

• Kirsty Brooks – The Vodka Dialogue
• Ian Callinan – Appointment at Amalfi
• Jon Cleary – Degrees of Connection
• Peter Corris – Master's Mates
• Michelle de Kretser – The Hamilton Case
• Garry Disher – Kittyhawk Down
• Kerry Greenwood – The Castlemaine Murders: A Phryne Fisher Mystery
• Wayne Grogan – Junkie Pilgrim
• Gabrielle Lord – Lethal Factor
• Barry Maitland – The Verge Practice
• Matthew Reilly – Scarecrow
• Gregory David Roberts – Shantaram
• Michael Robotham – The Suspect
• Steve J. Spears – Murder at the Fortnight
• Peter Temple – White Dog
• Lee Tulloch – The Cutting: A Nullin Mystery
• Robin Wallace-Crabbe – The Forger

• Ally Blake – The Wedding Wish
• Lucy Clark – Englishman at Dingo Creek
• Barbara Hannay – A Wedding at Windaroo
• Stephanie Laurens – A Gentleman's Honor
• Di Morrissey – Barra Creek
• Candice R. Proctor – Beyond Sunrise
• Meredith Webber – Outback Encounter

• Max Barry – Jennifer Government
• K. A. Bedford – Orbital Burn^[22]
• K. J. Bishop – The Etched City
• Russell Blackford – An Evil Hour^[23]
• Trudi Canavan – The High Lord^[24]
• Bill Congreve – Southern Blood: New Australian Tales of the Supernatural
• Cecilia Dart-Thornton – The Battle of Evernight
• Sara Douglass – God's Concubine^[25]
• Jennifer Fallon
  • Eye of the Labyrinth
  • Lord of the Shadows^[26]
• Lian Hearn – Grass for His Pillow
• Ian Irvine – Terminator Gene
• Victor Kelleher – Born of the Sea^[27]
• Glenda Larke – The Aware^[28]
• Fiona McIntosh – Myrren's Gift^[29]
• Anthony O'Neill – The Lamplighter^[30]
• Kate Orman – Blue Box^[31]
• Tony Shillitoe – Freedom^[32]
• Kim Wilkins – The Autumn Castle^[33]
• Sean Williams and Shane Dix – Heirs of Earth^[34]

• Mireille Juchau – White Gifts
• Hannie Rayson – Inheritance
• Henri Szeps – One Life, Two Journeys
• David Williamson – Birthrights

• Judith Beveridge – Wolf Notes
• Laurie Duggan – Mangroves
• Stephen Edgar – Lost in the Foreground
• Clive James – The Book of My Enemy : Collected Verse, 1958–2003
• John Kinsella – Peripheral Light

• Fiona Capp – That Oceanic Feeling
• Inga Clendinnen – Dancing with Strangers
• Patricia Crawford and Ian Crawford – Contested Country: A History of the Northcliffe Area
• David Hollinsworth – They Took the Children
• Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark – The History Wars
• Peter Robb – A Death in Brazil

• Graeme Blundell – King: The Life and Comedy of Graham Kennedy
• Lorraine Day – Gordon of Dingley Dell: The Life of Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–1870): Poet and Horseman
• Edward Duyker – Citizen Labillardiere: A Naturalist's Life in Revolution and Exploration (1755–1834)
• Greg Growden – The Snowy Baker Story
• Tom Keneally – Abraham Lincoln
• Jonathan King – Gallipoli: Our Last Man Standing: The Extraordinary Life of Alec Campbell
• Garry Linnell – Playing God: The Rise and Fall of Gary Ablett
• Peter Singer – Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna
• Nicholas Thomas – Discoveries: The Voyages of Captain Cook
• Anne Whitehead – Bluestocking in Patagonia

Note: these awards were presented in the year in question.

• 16 March – Susan McGowan, poet (born 1907)
• 18 March – Julie Lewis, short story writer (born 1925)
• 30 March – Nick Enright, playwright and screenwriter (born 1950)^[51]
• 2 April – Joan Phipson, writer for children and young adults (born 1912)
• 20 April – Bill Wannan, editor (born 1915)
• 1 May – Stephen Estaban Kelen, dramatist (born 1912)
• 28 June – Clem Christesen, poet and founding editor of Meanjin (born 1911)^[52]
• 30 June – Oriel Gray, playwright and screenwriter (born 1920)
• 23 November – Hesba Brinsmead, writer for children (born 1922)

• 2003 in Australia
• 2003 in literature
• 2003 in poetry
• List of years in literature
• List of years in Australian literature

Note: all references relating to awards can, or should be, found on the relevant award's page.