Hello, I'm Jamila Risvi. I've been a journalist for, oh God, too long, maybe 10 years now.

But growing up as an Indian Australian, I heard and I read and I watched stories being told by people who didn't look like me, whose experiences weren't like mine.

Whether it's our first peoples or our most recent

arrivals, Australia is full of diverse storytellers. Enter, find and tell. This is the search

for the next generation of Australian storytellers. We've taken four diverse Australian storytellers.

We've trained them up, and then we've set them loose to find and tell weird and

wonderful stories from all around the country.

Every episode, our storytellers, are going to go head to head, competing to give you

the best story, to get one step closer to taking home the grand prize.

Think of it like a TV talent show, but for podcasts.

In the first episode, you will hear from Ben and Kate.

They're going to match up to find and tell the best story they can on the theme of silver

linings.

In our first story, Ben investigates a mysterious

teddy bear invasion in the small country village of Neath. Here's a taste.

Welcome to Neith. A small country village on the outskirts of Cessnock in the Hunter Valley region, Darkland Junk Country.

It's a real blink and you'd miss it type of town, one road in and one road out.

It has a population of 490 people, a bus stop, a servo,

and in true blue Australian country town fashion, one pub.

You'd be forgiven if you've never heard about Neath.

Not many people have.

But for a short period of time, Neith was the talk of the region.

...