Take the California girl and drop her in the midwest for twenty years, then take the California girl turned midwesterner and drop her in New Jersey and you get the new update on our favorite New American Prairie Songwriter, Hope Dunbar. It’s been three years and one move east since the release of “Sweetheartland (April ‘21), and “You Let the Light In” (November, ‘21), and Dunbar’s been busy waiting on that next stroke of inspiration to spark her creativity.

Inspiration struck in the parking lot, of all places, with her friend and fellow songwriter, Jana Pochop back in 2023, when, just before getting into their cars and driving away, Hope said, “We should just make this record together.”

And that’s how Dunbar’s upcoming release started to take shape. Recorded at Howlin’ Dog Studios in Alamosa, CO with Pochop on board as producer and engineer, the two have spent the last year assembling a collection of twelve new songs with an All Star cast of musicians including Darrell Scott, Eliza Gilkyson, and Lloyd Maines, to name a few, for an album scheduled for release in the summer of 2025.

The title of the album, “Happily Ever Elsewhere,” speaks to the unexpected nature of these past five years and finding oneself in a very different place than what had been planned. Dunbar and her family moved to Hopewell Township, New Jersey in 2022 and, from there, she’s been rebuilding and redefining her career and her vision for the future. With the same honest vulnerability you come to expect from Dunbar coupled with her Americana, folk, country musical blend, her unforgettable voice, and the same desire to connect with the beauty of the ordinary, this time Dunbar has expanded her musical palette to include more synth tones and samples to aid in her expression of the elsewhere. Dunbar has also just recently returned to co-hosting her songwriting podcast, “Prompt Queens,” releasing new episodes weekly.