"The Outside In" Interview w/Charlotte Steckart

We interviewed Charlotte about her podcast, The Outside In. The Outside in is a podcast run by Charlotte Steckart and her friend Jess. ​ Introduce yourself. My Name is Charlotte Steckart, I am a recent graduate of THINk Global School. For the past 8 years I have been traveling around the globe with my family. I am now attending University of Green Bay online this next year at home in Wisconsin. ​ What is The Outside In? The Outside In is a podcast made to strike emotion in individuals and tell stories that are not always heard or talked about in mainstream media. ​ What inspired you to start the podcast? What other podcasts have been a source of inspiration for you? For me a big inspiration was The Heart. It is a great podcast that tells stories in a very engaging way through the audio aspect. They spend a lot of time working on special effects to really put the listener in the story itself. They also cover topics that are not talked about a lot. ​ What were your initial goals with the podcast? How do those goals differ from your current goals? My goals were to make at least 5 episode on a range of topics. I wanted to make the podcast a place where anyone could come to learn something new or feel less alone. The goals never really change I would say. ​ What is the recording process like? Do you have an outline of what you plan to discuss beforehand or is it just a naturally flowing conversation? My coworker and I decided to split up the tasks actually. Jess Pegram is from South Africa and we went to the same high school. They worked on the storytelling aspect and I did the audio editing. We both were always participating as storytellers in the episodes accept for two solo episodes. For each episode we brainstormed a topic and Jess would come up with our main points. We then would go apart for a week or two and each do our own preparation for the recording. Jess did most of the research and I did some to prepare myself as well. We then would normally have bullet points and and stick to those while we conversed. Then afterwords I would listen to the whole thing 3 or 4 times and cut out mistakes and then I would start putting it together. That process took about 2 weeks. ​ The Outside In covers a variety of topics from your experience as part of the LGBTQ community to Feminism in Oman, how do you come up with these topics? My high school was a traveling boarding school that went to 3 or 4 countries each year. When Jess and I were in a country we brainstormed topics that were relevant to the place we were in. Sometimes when we want to do an LGBTQ episode we had to wait until we left a country to publish it due to laws and our safety I those countries. For the majority of our episodes though we tried to keep the topics relevant to the place we were in. ​ What can listeners of The Outside In expect from you next? I think for now Jess and I have decided to put the podcast on pause. We want to work on it in the future but right now we are both at home. I think one day we might do something with it again. ​ You can find The Outside In, Charlotte and Jess on Instagram: @charlottes.travels @theoutsideinpodcast @jess.pegram and The Outside In on Apple Podcast and Spotify. ​ Originally published on September 1, 2020.