Forced to flee her home city of Trieste in 1919 after the Italian takeover, she settled in Ljubljana and resumed her Slovenian nationalist and feminist writing and activism, which had been cut short by her marriage two decades earlier.

[1][2][5] While she worked as a teacher, Nadlišek became involved in the Trieste literary scene, writing opinion articles and short fiction.

The following year, she published her first short story, titled "Moja prijateljica" ("My Female Friend"), in the periodical Ljubljanski zvon.

She also wrote on feminist subjects, notably participating in a long dialogue with the Catholic religious leader Anton Mahnič in which she disputed his argument that men should be supreme and dominant in society.

[1] She helped co-found the all-women local branch of the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius [sl], an educational organization, in 1887.

[1] After World War I, as the Italians took control of Trieste, she continued to secretly teach Slovene, causing the Carabinieri to frequently interrogate her.

[1] Nadlišek Bartol began writing a memoir of her life, titled Iz mojega življenja, beginning in 1927.