Ever been to Dimboola?
This small town on the Wimmera River has an attraction like no other, and many are uprooting from the big cities and settling for a quieter life in its suburbs.
And have you heard about the latest bestseller in post-COVID reading: The World Caught a Germ? Written by a preschool teacher from Tumut, it explains the pandemic to little children but really it is helping us all to understand.
Perhaps you've heard of coal-ash, but have you thought about how it can be reused and why we'd even bother?
These are some of the stories we dig into in ACM's newest podcast, the Voice of Real Australia.
Building on our popular Voice of Real Australia newsletter and Facebook page, the podcast will take listeners to new people, places, and perspectives around Australia.
Each episode will draw on ACM's Australia-wide network of more than 600 journalists to tell character-driven stories from beyond the big cities.
You can listen to the first episode below or find out how to subscribe for free in your favourite podcast app.
ACM editorial director Rod Quinn said the popularity of the Voice of Real Australia newsletter had shown the depth of interest from readers for rich and compelling stories from all states and territories.
"The podcast Voice of Real Australia takes the newsletter a step further, delving deeper into the personalities and stories that make up regional Australia and transporting listeners to places they may never have visited or even heard of," he said.
The podcast is part of ACM's strategy to grow the audience across voice assistance and mobile. ACM has launched five daily news briefings on Google Home and Amazon Echo that bring headlines from The Canberra Times, The Border Mail, the Illawarra Mercury, The Examiner and The Courier directly to smart speakers.
ACM Head of Dailies Chad Watson said the Voice of Real Australia podcast would resonate with communities across the ACM network. "Everyone has a story worth telling," he said. "This new podcast will showcase those stories for our growing audio audience."
Host of Voice of Real Australia Tom Melville said: "I'm so excited to share voices and stories from around Australia. These are stories that perhaps don't get a national airing and hopefully this podcast will fill that gap."
New episodes will come out fortnightly and will be available to listen to on all major podcast providers -- including Apple, Spotify, and Amazon.