The Society sponsors the Abbie Clancy Award, named after Abigail Mary Clancy (1898-1984), one of the founders of the Society of Women Writers and a prominent early 20th-century journalist.
This bursary of $1,000 is awarded annually and is open to female honours and post-graduate students attending universities in New South Wales. Entrants for the Award must submit an abstract (300-500 words) of an unpublished research paper on the published or unpublished work(s) of fiction or non-fiction of an Australian woman writer or journalist.
Judge’s Report
The winner of the Abbie Clancy Award for 2026 is: Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan.
Nicole attends Western Sydney University and is currently a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Social Sciences in Creative Writing. She is also a member of The Society of Women Writers NSW.
Nicole’s abstract is entitled Puberty Blues and the Female Origins of Australian Surf Fiction.
It is based on the novel Puberty Blues, a comedy/drama, an Australian coming-of-age text that was subsequently made into the 1981 film of the same name. The novel is written by Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey, and was published in 1979.
The novel focuses on the lives of best friends Debbie and Sue. The two inseparable teenage girls grow up together in the beachside suburb of Cronulla. As the years go by the two friends are torn apart over a love affair and their lives are threatened by the oncoming bushfires destroying their homeland.
Nicole’s abstract is well expressed and explores the marginalised, sexualised position the female occupies, where her presence is permitted, but authority denied, a position women occupy in modern surf culture. Nicole’s abstract is well argued and highlights the different expectations of society toward male privilege and female subservience.
Dr Teresa Petersen