Five on shortlist for Miles Franklin Award

Five first-time nominees have been named this year's Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist.

Australian poet Philip Salom's third novel, Waiting, is among the nominees and tells the tales of a cross-dressing man and his partner, and a divorced landscape gardener and his academic partner.

"It is a double narrative of two different classes of people," he told AAP.

"It is a novel of meetings and encounters and eccentric characters."

Author Emily Maguire was also shortlisted for her psychological thriller, An Isolated Incident, about a woman named Chris whose sister Bella is brutally murdered.

The three other shortlisted authors include; Mark O'Flynn for his book The Last Days Of Ava Langdon, Their Brilliant Careers by Ryan O'Neill and Josephine Wilson's Extinction.

State Library of NSW Mitchell librarian Richard Neville said the shortlist, announced on Sunday, celebrated diversity of voices and approaches to writing about Australian life.

"None of these novels draw on familiar tropes of Australian literature - yet each brings a distinctive pitch of truth and insight into the Australian experience," he said on behalf of the judging panel.

The shortlisted authors will receive $5000 from the Copyright Agency's Cultural Fund.

The overall winner will be announced on September 7.