Some creative lives unfold in a single lane. Others move fluidly across disciplines, driven by curiosity and instinct. Sarah Bailey belongs firmly in the latter camp.

Sarah Bailey is an Australian crime novelist best known for the bestselling Gemma Woodstock detective series. Before turning to creative projects full time, she built a successful career in advertising and served as Managing Director at the global agency VML, leading teams across both Sydney and Melbourne.

Today, based in Melbourne, Sarah balances family life as a mother of three boys with a portfolio of creative projects spanning novels, screenwriting and podcasting. Her seventh crime novel is currently underway, along with her podcast He Read She Read. She is also developing a screenplay she hopes will secure funding this year. Together, these projects reflect a creative life defined by curiosity, discipline and momentum.

That sense of forward movement is not accidental. It reflects a deliberate decision to step away from a traditional executive path and reorient her career around creative work, with all the uncertainty and possibility that comes with it.

Ask Sarah what she wishes more women felt confident doing, and she answers without hesitation.

“Applying for the big, meaty roles. More often than not women are more capable than their male counterparts, but they find all the reasons not to go for them.”

It is a perspective shaped in part by her own experience leading at the highest levels of the advertising industry before choosing to pursue her creative projects full time. Ambition and reinvention, it seems, rarely follow a straight line.

There is a clarity to the way Sarah now defines success. Less about external markers, more about alignment. The work itself, the people around her, and the creative goals still to be realised.

And what does living well look like right now for Sarah?

“Being healthy, being connected to good people and having clear creative goals I want to achieve.”

IN HER WORDS

On influence

"Influence is the positive energy someone puts into the world that becomes contagious. It makes people more alive to ideas and new ways of thinking, and in turn they feel physically energised."

On great style

"It's knowing what is going to make you look and feel great."

On rituals

"I love making to-do lists and crossing off my tasks as I achieve them. For me, a good notebook is key".

The woman she'd invite to a dinner party

Monica Lewinsky — "Her story is so public and I think the way she has navigated her life in the wake of such public shaming and terrible treatment by the media and society is very inspiring."

Her advice to other women

“You can do more than you think you can. Just tackle things one minute at a time.”

HER CURRENT LINE-UP

Reading

Heart the Lover by Lily King

Listening to

Audiobook Vigil by George Saunders
Podcasts including Lamestream, We Used to Be Journos and Stylish Conversations

Watching

Hijack

Women of Influence is a Chic Notes series celebrating women defining their own path, and whose ideas, work and perspectives inspire and uplift.

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