S2E7 June 2026 Q&A with Naomi Shippen on Before She Killed Him

Welcome to Kelly's Writerly Q&A, a podcast that celebrates authors and their books! I'm your host, Kelly Sgroi, writer, reader, and soccer mum.

Listen to my 30th episode where I chat to Naomi Shippen, author of two domestic suspense novels who also writes deeply personal essays about betrayal, resilience and reinvention. Before She Killed Him, is a thrilling read that came out with Kingsley Publishers November last year!  

We discuss:

• What Before She Killed Him is about and how Naomi structured it
• Financial abuse
• The Artist's Way
• Making money as a writer
• Book reviews

And more!

Thank you for listening!

Music credit to Levgen Poltavskyi from Pixabay.

*If you enjoy this podcast, please like, share, follow, and consider buying a copy of the book using my Booktopia affiliate link or buy me a Ko-fi. Your support, big or small, will help cover hosting and production costs, and keep me creating and supporting authors and books!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

You're listening to Kelly's Riderly QA, a monthly podcast that features authors and their books. Kelly Scroy is your host, writer, reader, and soccer fan.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

This is season two, episode seven of Kelly's Rightly QA, and I'd like to extend a warm welcome to

Welcome Naomi Shippen

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Naomi Shippen, the author of two domestic suspense novels, who also writes deeply personal essays about betrayal, resilience, and reinvention. Before She Killed Him is a thrilling read that came out with Kingsley Publishers November last year. Congratulations, how are you today?

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Thanks, Kelly. Um very well. Yes, it um seems so long ago now that it came out. It's only November.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

I know, time's flying. And you know what else has flown? We

When we met

SPEAKER_02 0:59

met in 2019.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Oh no, that long ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Can't believe how long we've known each other and we've been sharing every manuscript basically.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yes, that's true. And it all started from one little tweet I put out a call. Can anyone please read my book for me and I'll read yours? And yes, and you put up your hand and we haven't looked back since.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I know. I feel like I can't write a book without you now.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

So I'm the same. You're yeah, no, I'm the same. I I go straight to you when I'm finished, and or sometimes even before I'm finished. Do you get to see the first most unpolished version of the story? But your feedback has always been so invaluable. I honestly couldn't do it without you.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Likewise, but also I tell you what's really special is how comfortable I am with sharing those first vulnerable drafts with you. So that's the most amazing part of it, I think, when you've worked with someone for so long. You know what to expect, and there's no judgment.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

No, that's right. And I think you and I can tell each other if something isn't working, we can do that as well. But yeah, no, we're safe to to share those first early drafts that we yeah, it's hard to hand it over when you've first finished because you honestly don't know. I by the time I get to the end, I honestly don't even know if it makes sense or not.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yeah. And it's just so special to have a copy of your book, knowing that I originally had read it as a manuscript. So thank you for also making sure that I got a copy.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Oh, absolutely. That's my pleasure. That's the least of what I could do.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

I

Our written blog

SPEAKER_02 2:48

also want to mention that we have done an interview before, but it was before I was recording any conversations. We had a private Zoom chat back then. And there is a written blog that people can go to my website and search up and just check out the original questions that I asked you about sort of why you write, where you write, how long does it take you to write, and those sort of things. But today we're going into much more detail, so it's a good one to look back on for anyone who's just discovered you.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah, I'd be interested to go back and reread that interview myself and just see you. Well, it's been three years, so I can't believe it's been three years. No, so yeah. Yeah, sure is.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

So, thank you for taking the

About Before She Killed Him

SPEAKER_02 3:41

time to answer some more writerly questions. And I have had the pleasure of reading before she killed him. It's such a page turner, and I have to tell you, my husband got very nervous when he saw that the edge of the couch.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

He's like, Why are you reading that? Oh, how funny. I'm sorry to scare him. I'm actually quite harmless.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

You know what it reminded me of when Jess Kitching's book came out about the husband.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

How to destroy your husband.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

How to destroy your husband. We all had a laugh. I think it was Fiona Taylor's best literary husband. We were all laughing about that one at the time. So this is the next one that you have to be careful where you leave this lying around because I tell you, it caused a conversation in my house. Oh goodness. So, for anyone who hasn't heard of it, how would you describe it?

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Well, it's a modern contemporary domestic suspense. Um, I like to write about everyday people, so it features a fairly average working mum who you might meet at the footy club or at the school gates. But she finds herself in a very unusual situation. She's recovering in hospital following a serious car crash that's left her concussed and badly injured and her next-door neighbour dead. And it's also left her the um suspect of a murder as well. So as she's trying to recover, she knows that the police are circling and she's got all that stress of not only dealing with all her injuries but an impending criminal investigation as well.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

It's a perfect description of what readers are to expect. So I think you just keep getting better and better. This one's so pacey, and the way you've structured it is very clever, which we'll talk about later. Yeah, so readers are in for a treat.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Oh, thanks, Kelly. I'm so glad that you enjoyed it. And again, look, your feedback has been invaluable in getting it to the standard that that it's reached. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

You're welcome. It's such a pleasure. But I do want to ask you like, do you purposely challenge yourself with each book? And also let's talk

On structure

SPEAKER_02 6:04

about that structure and how it is quite unique.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, well, look, I always always try and do the very best with everything I do. I just always want to improve. I'm never going to just plateau and say, okay, I'm I'm I'm here, I've arrived, I'm not gonna try and reach any further. I want everything I do to be better than the last thing, so I'm always learning. And to do that, I suppose I do a lot of reading. Just try and read as widely as I can, particularly in my genre, but I don't stick to just my genre, I read other ones as well, like romance or women's fiction or historical fiction, all the different ones. And yeah, as for the structure, I it's multiple point of view and dual timeline. So for most of the book, we're in the protagonist's point of view, which is Simone, and she's a very unreliable narrator. And the book is divided into three parts. And the first part is while she's really at her worst, she's just come out of a car crash, she's trying to recover, her memories are very fragmented and barely knows what's going on around her. The second part of the book, she's recovering physically and emotionally, she's mem remembering a little bit back further into the past and just remembering her youth and how her life has formed, and she's sort of uh is putting all that together, and the last part of the book her present-day memories come back and she manages to integrate all three so her past, her present, and her future, because she's she's got to act to save her future, so she's sort of very integrated by the end of the novel.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

When I read it in manuscript form, you always had those three parts, and then I think you've later added some extra POV sections, but you must have had that original plan from the very beginning.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Yeah, I'm really a plotter. So I've got a spreadsheet, and it's basically the beginning, middle, and end, and then I have the five, you know, main turning points, and I pretty much stick to that. So I do start out with a loose plan, but that's not to say I can't change, I'm not that inflexible that I I have to stick with it, but for this book it seemed to work.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Keeps the reader turning, especially because the way it's split up, so not only the three parts, but then you have chapters with multiple POVs within the chapter, so they're almost like little vignettes. Sort of reminds me of Paula Hawkins' style of writing.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Yeah, I find it really does keep up the pace. Simone's a very full-on sort of character. She's she sort of acts first and thinks later, which I think is good for keeping up the pace anyway. In other novels I've written, the protagonist has been a bit more low-key, and you know, they need someone a bit more exciting to keep the pace going. But I think I always like to see the same event interpreted by two different people because you often see two different completely, completely different things. In this case, you sort of get a glimpse into other people's motivations and perceptions as well. So all the point of view characters are really quite unreliable, and you've got to kind of put the pieces together and draw your own conclusions. But yeah, I like to have the different points of view and the different timelines sort of intersecting.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

And even like if you had chosen to structure it as one point of view per chapter and sort of comp them all together, I think it's less blank space on the page that a reader can get bored with. Yeah. Whereas like it's a super fast pace, this one, because of the way that you have split everything up, and there's no time to get bored because then you're on to the next thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

So thanks. I'm glad you found it that way because yeah, with a suspense novel, you've got to keep bringing up something new all the time, and a lot of the characters can only see so much, and they don't have all the information, so you can bring that information to light by introducing another character who will, you know, provide another piece of the puzzle that the main character can't because they don't have the knowledge. So, yeah, I think that's keeps the pace going.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Definitely. So, the common theme with your writing is financial

Financial abuse

SPEAKER_02 10:50

abuse, and I've noticed that even there was a snippet in the very first manuscript you ever wrote that I pointed out and said, This is where you're really shining, and and ever since you've sort of gone with it. So, can you tell me about how you became, and I'm quoting a post you did on Medium here, a dangerous woman who is now a published author.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

That's funny. Yeah, I read a story on Medium. It was called What Makes a Woman Dangerous? And I was reading this and I was thinking, oh, there's this dangerous woman on the loose. I better, you know, be beware of her, so I better keep my eye out so she doesn't get me. And as I was reading, they said a dangerous woman is like someone who is independent, earns their own money, and doesn't need anyone else for support. And I thought, well, that's me. I'm not dangerous, I'm quite harmless. So I just sort of became fascinated by that idea of a dangerous woman. And with financial abuse, I think it's it's all part of the group of different abuses, and I think sometimes it can be underestimated because obviously the more overt forms of abuse are more immediate, and well, particularly when it's physical or sexual, it's very clear to see what's going on. But with financial abuse, it's very insidious and it's not often obvious until long after the event. But I just think with financial abuse, it's a way you can actually destroy someone with it without ever laying a finger on them. You can destroy someone's physical health, mental health, you can take away their identity, all the things that make them who they are. And I just think it's something that can be done within the bounds of the law. So I think it's really fascinating in that way because of just the nature of it being so insidious, and it can go on for years and years, and you may not really feel the full effects until a long time later. It's it's I suppose like a cancer. It can be present in in the body, it can be present, but you know, it can be just lurking without showing itself for for years and years, and then bang, it will hit all of a sudden, and you'll be right in the thick of it. So I find that yeah, quite fascinating.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah. And like you said, you became a dangerous woman, and becoming a published author has been part of that, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Yes, it has because I've drawn a lot on my uh life experiences, and also well, it helps you know, being a writer is another way of earning money, which helps the cause of being a dangerous woman who is financially independent. So the two sort of sort of serve each other. So the life experiences provide inspiration for my writing, and then that earns me money, so it's all becomes part and parcel of being a dangerous woman.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

Yeah, good on you. You've done so well. And let's

Money

SPEAKER_02 14:09

actually talk about money and how tough it is to be a writer and how you actually do earn money as a writer. We touched on medium before. Can you tell us a bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yes, I've started writing on Medium about 18 months ago. Something I stumbled on. It's a subscription platform, and I've seen it before, and I've really liked the look of a lot of the stories I saw, but I just balked it, you know, having yet another subscription. So for many years I just didn't bother with it. And then I came across one article which was about how to make money from writing, and I just thought, right, I've got to read this. So I bit the bullet and took out a subscription, and lo and behold, I discovered that anyone who wants to write for medium can do so. I think you've got to accumulate about a hundred followers and pay a small subscription, and once you've done that, you're in. And it's all based on engagement. So how many people clap for you or make comments or how long they read, and you engage with the readers. So people will respond to your story, and then you can answer them in return if you wish to. Either way, and it's just uh that sort of back and forth between yourself and the reader, which is good. And then you may earn a bit of money at the end of the month, which is nice.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

I was on Medium a long time ago. I remember when you were thinking about going on it, and I I told you what I knew of it, and when it became a paid platform, that's when I stopped.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

It was a wonderful place where I got my first publication and had, yeah, like you said, the claps and the feedback and comments that you get, and working with the editors of the publications on there, it was just amazing. So I probably shouldn't have stopped.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

You can start again anytime, it's just there waiting for you.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

So, would you say that you get more fulfillment from that now, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Well, I've sort of been concentrating on that more because I've just sort of had to establish a routine. Last year I was just very just posted if and when I felt like it. And I had a couple of articles that did really well and earned a nice little chunk of change for me. But to make it an ongoing way of earning money, you really do have to put the work in and I suppose find your niche. In my case, I've got a few different streams of interest that I write about, and that's okay. They sort of all intersect. So I've got the writing about the betrayal and life reinvention. I also write about writing and also do a few book reviews, although I haven't been doing as many, and they all sort of intersect. So once you know what you want to write about, and if you're willing to put the work in and do, I don't know, perhaps one a week or two a week, you'll build up a bit of a following, and it's like any social media, the more that you put into it, the more you'll get out of it. So I I found it really, really good this past 18 months.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

That's great. I noticed that you've been blogging about your experience with the artist's

The Artist's Way

SPEAKER_02 17:48

way.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Do you recommend that book? Absolutely, and I think it's really good for people at the beginning of their creative journey because I think we've all got to overcome that cringe of actually sitting down and claiming your time and your right to do that, because I think we've got in Australia a little bit of a cultural cringe and a little bit of a suspicion around people being a bit full of themselves if they think they're an artist or an actor or a writer. There's sort of that a bit of um pushback, you know, to think, well, who do you think you are? But really anyone can do that. If you want to do it, well, why shouldn't you? There's no reason why you can't pick up a pen and paper or a paintbrush or say some lines or do whatever you want to do. There's nothing stopping you. It's really just yourself that's stopping you. So it helps you c overcome that initial shame, which I think we've all sort of got. And then also it encourages you to just treat it as a process. You're not going to come up with a masterpiece every time. You know, you're going to have some failures, some things won't work out, you'll hit some dead ends, but just to keep at it and just to to basically claim your right to be an artist and believe in yourself and keep going. And it also teaches you how to deal with objections from people around you or even objections in yourself. And you might be thinking, Oh, I should be doing the laundry or get a second job or whatever else I should be doing. It just teaches you to deal with all those sort of negative thoughts that come into your head. So I'd recommend it. And it's got a lot of exercises to help you on your way. Like, for example, the morning pages are really helpful. You just sit down every morning and um write anything that comes into your head. And that's a way of, Julia Cameron says in the book, taking out the garbage, so clearing the mental space so you can have room for creative ideas. So that's really helpful. And going on an artist date, that's when you go out to somewhere place of interest. It can be an art gallery, it could be a park, anywhere you like, just to fill up your creative world because you can't just stay at home all day. You'll you've got to go out into the world and get ideas. So all these little kind of techniques to just get the creative brain flowing.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah. I agree. I recommend it too. I used it and some other craft books when I was in my deepest slump.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

And it definitely got me out. I will say that I don't even think I finished the 12 weeks. Okay. I got what I needed out of it at maybe the halfway point. And I did some of the exercises loosely. But yeah, it it was effective for me. The the morning pages facing some of the questions that you needed to answer about yourself as an artist and forcing myself to go on a date on my own. You know. I do recommend it as well. It's yeah, I would say don't get overwhelmed if you pick it up and you think I can't do all this, I can't commit to 12 weeks because it can be effective if you make your own thing out of it, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Yeah, no, you just tell it to yourself, and there's nothing to stop you. Like Kelly, you could go back now and pick up where you left off if you wanted to. There's you're only doing it for yourself. You you only have to answer to yourself. So, you know, if you're struggling, there's nothing to stop you putting it down and coming back to it later, or just modifying it to suit yourself.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

And I also think that anyone Who criticizes someone for wasting time writing, let's say, I think that they don't really understand how ugly the world would be without artists and therapy that art provides, like you know, you sit down and put the TV on and watch a movie, and it's relaxing in just the way you need, and you can get lost in a book, and you know, the beauty of a painting on the wall, it's more important than people realise.

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Absolutely, and it is part of our everyday life, it's not something esoteric that's only for special occasions, it's part of our everyday life. We need that creativity in our everyday life. Like, for example, we all listen to music in the car on the way to work, or you know, as you said, sit down at night and watch a movie to unwind and relax, or just even the artwork around you. You might go into a cafe and there's an interesting painting on the wall that makes you feel a certain way. It's just it's around us everywhere. It's part of our everyday life. And even people who claim that they're not creative, well, you know, from time to time they'll want to try a new recipe or might want to, you know, wear a different style of clothing or change their hairstyle. That's it, it's creativity is it's just part of being a human being. It's not just for a certain group of people, it's not just for the top 1% who are successful in their field. We're creative beings, it's just our nature.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Well said. So you touched on before that you've done reviews,

Book reviews

SPEAKER_02 23:44

but not so much these days. And but I know you are such a lovely literary citizen, and I was wondering about that and maybe why you're thinking of pulling away from reviews, but also like how do you go about picking what you're going to review and and the whole process. There is a lot involved in doing reviews, don't you think?

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah, look, it wasn't a conscious decision, it's just I'm always drifting from one thing to another. I never consciously leave anything behind particularly, it's just that I'm sort of drifting off to somewhere else. With me, reviews are really subjective and it's just whatever catches my eye at the time. And also, of course, if somebody I know has written a book, I'll definitely get behind them and read the book and support them with a review or something because I just think we all need to help each other in that way because it's it's so tough, you know, being a writer in the saturated market. But um, I certainly don't claim to be a professional critic or even know particularly what I'm talking about. I'm just someone with an opinion and my own interpretation of of how I see something. For example, I saw the movie Wuthering Heights, and I know everyone, or a lot of people were really really didn't like it because it wasn't true to the novel or true to the historical details of the time. But personally, I went into it with an open mind, and I wrote a review because I thought, well, I want to show another point of view. Everyone's pillaring this movie, but I just thought it captured the I think the message of the novel, which was that no one will drive you crazy as much as the person you love. And I think that it really delivered that message. There's certain certainly a lot of madness in in that movie. So I suppose, yeah, with reviews, I just and sometimes I don't want to write a review because I want to read something privately. Like, for example, it was Virginia Andrews. Yes. Yes. Like I I got back into reading a lot of her books. I did read the Flowers in the Attic series, and then I discovered she's got about 80 other books, but I haven't reviewed them because she doesn't need my help. And also I just sometimes I just feel like reading in private and don't feel like telling the world about it. So it all depends really.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah, I can so relate to that. Sometimes I love a book, but I just want to read it privately, keep it to myself. And if I am talking to someone about books, I'll definitely verbally recommend it. But yeah, sometimes you do want to just enjoy reading and not worry about sort of articulating in words what you actually thought.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yeah, yeah, because it it's it is a private experience, it's very personal, and it's great that that we can discuss and share and promote other books, but sometimes you just want to keep something for yourself. And I know there are people who don't think highly of her work. Some people perhaps have a bit of literary snobbery towards her work, so I just thought, well, no, I'll just just read it for my own enjoyment. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

I really I've only read Flowers in the Attic, but I enjoyed it, so I don't know. That's my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

I loved it.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Yeah, so just to finish up, what can

What's next?

SPEAKER_02 27:21

we expect from you next?

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Oh, more betrayal, more financial abuse, more murder. Um editing my next novel, which is another domestic suspense. This one is I I don't know why, but I've found that I've sort of written about women at different stages of life. Like the first novel was about a woman who's just you know just starting out and establishing her family. The second novel is about a woman who's right in the thick of it, she's got teenage children, she's a working mum and doing all that. And the one I'm working on now is a woman who's basically an empty nestar, also divorced, and just about what happens with her. So I'm working on that and also the medium story, so trying to find a balance between the two.

SPEAKER_02 28:11

Yeah, so good. And because I've read it, I'm excited about it, and you're just getting better and better, and I feel like there is a bit of that Virginia Andrews sort of gothic influence to your stories that I'm loving as well. So it's amazing, very exciting.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

And

How can people find you?

SPEAKER_02 28:32

if anyone is interested in looking you up on Medium, how do they find you?

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Just my name, um Naomi Shippen.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Um also on my website at Naomi NaomiShippen.com. I've got some of my stories there, so you'll be able to find your way there and just on my link tree as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Perfect. Well, thank you so much. It's been wonderful to chat again, and I look forward to hopefully your third novel coming out next year.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Fingers crossed, I better get a move on because we're nearly halfway through the year.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kelly's Brightly QA. If you'd like to know more about the podcast, visit Kellyscroy.com.