Her first book of poems, "Rhymes from the Factory", was published in 1907. When this was republished in an enlarged one shilling edition in 1908 she achieved national recognition. Robert Blatchford, proprietor of the "Clarion", interviewed Ethel Carnie at 76 Windsor Road, Great Harwood, in the summer of 1908 for a feature in one of his newspapers, the "Woman Worker". Carnie Holdsworth appeared in the newspaper's 'Portrait Gallery' under the title 'A Lancashire Fairy'. Blatchford offered her a job writing articles and poems for the "Woman Worker", in London, which she also edited between July and December 1909. Carnie was dismissed after six months for reasons which remain obscure. Edmund and Ruth Frow suggest that her increasingly political and feminist editorials may have caused Blatchford to reassess her input.