Eldershaw was a leading figure in Sydney literary circles, becoming, in 1935, the first woman president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW), a position she held again in 1943. As Dever writes, "With Barnard and Frank Dalby Davison, she developed policies on political and cultural issues, and helped to transform the F.A.W. into a vocal and sometimes controversial lobby group". Through the late 1930s, these three were known as "the triumvirate". Besides these two, her literary associates included Vance and Nettie Palmer, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Judah Waten and Tom Inglis Moore.