Bright Star

Bridgette Conner is in her early 20s, studying violin at a university in the American South. She's a part-time waitress, a full-time creative, and for all intents and purposes, a pretty normal twenty-something living a pretty normal life. She has senior year finals coming up, a few summer classes to round things out, and after that? Bridgette hasn't given it much thought.

One Sunday in 2018, a newcomer enters the diner where she works. And suddenly, Bridgette has many, many thoughts about what comes next: Magic is for fairytales. Her life has been anything but.

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... Until now.

"Bright Star" follows Bridgette as she begins to tackle an uncertain, constantly changing present based on a past she didn't know was hers to claim. The world in which Bridgette grew up is very different from the possibilities she's now presented with - if she is willing to join forces with Elves and Fairies, witches and Sanguisuge coteries, Tieflings and Baetalü, to make possibility reality.

Immersed largely in the history of the Salem Witch Trials and Civil Rights Movement, melded with modern-day challenges of changing colonizer mindsets and confronting one's own economic and social biases, "The Meridian Trilogy" is as much a fantasy series as it is a lens through which to view twenty-first century politics and global lifestyles. Intensely researched, meticulously detailed, combining fictional worldbuilding with real-life happenings, it's a rarity in the genre ... and perhaps like Bridgette Conner, something new in its entirety.

Dallas grew up just outside of Augusta, Georgia, the daughter of environmental engineer Jayson Duncan and retired educator & published author Terri Kaye Duncan. Her younger brother, Barret, is a successful pharmacist and owner of Cold Brewing Company.After stints in Macon and the Atlanta area, Dallas is now proud to again call the Classic City of Athens, Georgia, home, along with her three cats. She graduated from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 2011 with dual bachelors of science in agriculture degrees: one in animal science with a meat sciences emphasis, the second in agricultural communication.Her background is heavy in traditional print journalism and includes award-winning publications The Red & Black, The Times, and The Georgia Voice. She owned agriCULTURE Magazine from 2015 to 2016 and worked extensively in the agricultural media world before starting her own company as a photographer and digital storyteller. Though her full-time career includes both butchery and photography, social media and graphic design, Dallas was a storyteller long before she could write.She illustrated "books" and told her parents the words to write on each page. In fact, the series now known as "The Meridian Trilogy" began as one such drawing when she was only five years old! By first grade, Dallas was "writing books" herself, telling imaginative stories about her beloved Boston terrier Nicky and fictional sets of animal characters. Simultaneously, Dallas devoured books faster than her parents could buy them. She craved getting lost in new worlds and other places, and used her Barbie dolls and Beanie Babies to act out "fan fiction" based on the creatures and people other authors created.Nowadays, Dallas never stops creating, though she's moved on from toys acting out others' storylines to actually writing the stories herself! She has multiple novels and series planned, including the second and third books in "The Meridian Trilogy" and a prequel that follows the founding of its magical setting, Heáhwolcen. She finds inspiration in the strangest of places, and has been known to wake up out of a dead sleep to furiously scribble a note to herself for future stories, or to connect plot points that drag out her writing process.When Dallas isn't writing or working, she's probably knitting and listening to an audiobook ... or sipping a cold beer, iced covfefe, or whiskey cocktail at one of her favorite establishments. Occasionally she's doing all of the above, given that her cozy couch is also one of her favorite establishments. She is a massive Georgia Bulldogs football fan, loves to cosplay no matter the season, and grounds herself through all the "busy" using a variety of ritual and nature.Her books, photo prints, and knitted gifts can be purchased through Witchling Boudoir, the retail arm of her business. She encourages everyone to have confidence in their own magic, and to embrace patience and grace when the Universe and Nature present challenges that seem impossible to endure.