What to Expect When You’re on Submission: The Poly Edition

🎙️ New episode: Dedeker Winston on co-writing, multiple agents & treasuring the process

Jun 26, 2025

Hey, Bleeders!

This week on the podcast, I got to chat with the fabulous Dedeker Winston—solo author of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Polyamory, co-author of Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, and co-host of the Multiamory podcast. TL;DR: Dedeker’s been through it when it comes to writing, publishing, and, of course, going on submission—solo and with her former polycule.

Whether you're noodling on your first book idea or deep in the submission trenches (solidarity ✊), I think you’ll appreciate this conversation with Dedeker. Here are a few of my favorite gems from our convo—but be sure to listen to the full episode for the whole scoop.

From total newbie to debut author

Dedeker didn’t always know she wanted to be an author. “Looking back, I never thought that I was going to be a writer. I never thought I was gonna publish a book in my entire life. It was never my dream,” she said. “Someone back in 2015… was talking to me and planted the idea in my head of like, ‘Oh, you should write a book.’ And for some reason, I was like, yeah, that does sound like a really good idea.”

That kicked off a crash course in publishing, courtesy of Google and grit. “Literally just stumbling through it,” she recalled. It took her about six months to figure out how to write a book proposal.

But then? “I think that I got extremely lucky… I think I got interest from an agent maybe after just a few queries, honestly. So probably in less than a month.”

That kicked off the first of her lucky breaks: a dream team of agents—Uwe Stender and Brent Taylor at Triada US—who were “so patient with me as a new baby author asking all my questions and also really honest with me.”

Co-authoring with your former polycule?

Her second book, Multiamory, was pitched with her podcast co-hosts (and former polycule members)—and the submission process this time? It was polyamorous through and through. “I acquired an even more polyamorous agent situation,” she joked. Another agent teamed up with Brent and Uwe to get the project ready and take it to market.

What sounds chaotic on paper was actually harmonious IRL. “And it's so funny—when I describe it, it sounds really complicated,” she said. “But it worked out great with actually a pretty minimum of, I would say, conflict or tension between our agents or between all of us.”

The chapter that almost got cut

Even though they’d been podcasting together for years, co-writing a book came with new challenges—like letting go of control. “I’m like a total control freak when it comes to my writing and everything else in my life,” Dedeker confessed. (Same here!) The biggest point of contention came when she wanted to cut a chapter that her co-authors loved.

They turned to beta readers, who also voted to keep it. “It was a big pivoting moment,” said Dedeker. “I do have this big inner critic and this inner perfectionist that is like, it’s not perfect, throw it in the garbage… and then also having to sit with it's gonna be imperfect and I have to live with that, which is a lesson I'm still learning.”

Why you probably want an agent

One of Dedeker’s biggest tips? Have an agent (or two) who has your back.

“It doesn't even have to be that you're working with an evil publisher who wants to exploit you,” she explained. “Of course the publisher is gonna act in their best interest at every turn… I've seen authors end up just losing a lot of rights or not even knowing what they can ask for from a publisher because there isn't that middleman.”

That doesn’t mean things always go perfectly. She shared her experience of an editor leaving mid-process, even after a writer friend suggested she ask about that possibility in the initial meeting. “I chickened out from asking that question. And I should have, because the acquisitions editor left.”

Pro tip: Workshop a polite version of “Are you planning to leave soon?”

Advice for the submission trenches

When I asked Dedeker for advice for writers currently on submission, she offered sage wisdom that applies to publishing as well as new relationships in general: “Head in the clouds, feet on the ground.”

“This is sort of like this really special time where we get this special mix of emotions, the terror and the excitement and the hope and the despair,” she elaborated. “And that's all before you're even writing the dang thing quite yet. And so I think there's something about treasuring that.”

Treasure it all, Bleeders. Even the anxiety. It just means you care.

🎧 Listen to Dedeker’s episode now!

Happy bleeding!
Courtney

I’m teaching some upcoming workshops you might be interested in:

So… ROLL CALL! 🗣️

Have you ever co-written something—did you love it or want to rip your hair out?

The Bleeders

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