A Teen Amplifying Teen Voices: An Interview with Kilhah St Fort

By Kilhah St Fort & Amber Loveless

This is an interview conducted by mentor Amber Loveless, who is interviewing her mentee Kilhah St Fort about her teen advocacy work for YALS magazine.

Amber Loveless: There we go. Hi, this is Amber Loveless and I am here with Kilhah St Fort. We’re going to talk a little bit about Kilhah’s experience as an advocate for Teen Voices. Kilhah and I know each other through the Girls Write Now program, where I’ve been her mentor for last year and this is our second year together. I’m professionally a librarian. Anyway, Kilhah, do you want to introduce yourself?

Kilhah St Fort: Sure. Like Amber said, I’m Kilhah. I am a senior right now at Thomas Edison High School in Queens, really, I just love advocating for Teen Voices, and I do that through a lot of extracurricular programs that I do. The main way I think we could advocate for Teen Voices, also what I do is mainly through writing and discussion.

Amber: Let’s go jump right into the questions. I’ll say that this interview, we’re using it as a podcast partly for our Girls Write Now experience, but also, it’s going to be in YALS Teen Voices issue, as the interview that they feature. I think they do one featured interview an issue and this time it gets to be us. We’re really quite proud of that. Kilhah, it’s you, you’re the reason, it’s not me, it’s you they want to hear from. What is your first memory of wanting to be involved in amplifying teen voices? What does that phrase ‘amplifying teen voices’ mean to you?

Kilhah: The first memory was technically it has to be one of the programs I was proud of Climate Speaks at a Climate Museum. It was basically a few weeks after the final performance that we spent months leading up to. What happened was that some of us, finalists were given the opportunity to do a photoshoot, basically to have promotional bus ads, hyping up Climate Week 2020. Climate Museum [inaudible 00:02:15] my years are messed up, sorry. It was Climate Week 2019. What happened is, we met before for lunch with some of us finalists, along with employees of the Climate Museum. We had about an hour or so.

Amber: The Climate, what museum? My connection went out just there.

Kilhah: The Climate Museum. We got to meet with some of their employees, and we were going to do a photoshoot for most of the bus ads and stuff like that for climate with 2019. With that, I just had a lot of time to actually speak with their employees and talk about what they were doing and their careers and just why they were interested in Climate Museum. These were all people that I actually didn’t meet through my time in Climate Speaks because they were directly involved in the program. They were involved in the Climate Museum in general.

It was really interesting because, all throughout the months that I was preparing for Climate Speaks was, I was meeting with people who were just—they were really right in focus through their youth focus. I thought maybe they were the only person who cared for the voices that was their whole jobs, but then I was meeting with other new people I met that day from the photoshoot. I don’t know, just talking to them and hearing about how they wanted to be part of something that was bigger than them and how they were at Climate Museum, in general, is very Teen Voice focus, not just another program.

I was really inspired by that because, I thought it was really cool that they want to do all this background work in order to amplify other people’s voices rather than their own. I felt that was really cool. I think it made me feel like more than just a meal ticket because, oftentimes, any really corporations or anything that used teens in order to push their product because that is the hottest market for some people. I felt like I was generally valued, and I actually started believing in my own voice. With that, I just wanted to make other teens feel the same way, and I want to find new ways to get involved.

For what amplifying teen voices mean to me, that’s just really giving teens a platform to speak. It’s not to say that you’re making their voices immune and that our words are law. It’s just the fact that you’re letting us say our piece, giving us the space to feel comfortable saying this and that. You’re allowing us really to grow because I’ve seen we are still really young. My opinions will always be changing just as anyone else, but my opinions right now are valid, if that makes sense.

Amber: You talked a little bit about the relationships you’re developing with Climate Speaks, and as you are meeting people and working with people in your advocacy work. Those relationships you’ve been developing, how have they affected or influenced your ongoing work?

Kilhah: I think a lot of the people I’ve met, they’re really positive people. I think for advocacy, you have to be positive because it’s hard work. You have to believe in what you’re doing. I think they’re so just positive and welcoming. I started adopting those traits because, when you’re in that warm environment, that’s when you and other people actually feel comfortable about speaking up and making change. I was trying to remember little traits about how they always greet you with a smile, how they’re generally listening to you, they’re actively listening.

They show interest in little parts of your day, even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the actual cause. It’s just like basic human decency. I think it’s something that’s really easy to forget, but it’s something that’s also really important.

Amber: Can you share a little bit about the groups that you’re involved with? Are they mostly teen led, or how does the balance between adult leaders and teen leaders work?

Kilhah: I think not only really part of one teen-led group. The rest of them, they are teen-focused, but they are not teen led. They allow room for teen stuff meaning in positions of power. The first one was Climate Speaks. I’ll backtrack and explain about that. Climate Speaks is basically a youth program within the organization Climate Museum, which is the first-ever museum focused on climate change and generating possible solutions to it. Climate Speaks is essentially a program that lasts a few months. I believe it’s their spring semester of a school year. That’s where you basically enter in a contest.

It’s centered around using writing and art in order to promote climate justice. With that, you get to meet a lot of different mentors, and you go do all those bunch of workshops both on climate change and also just about spoken word and performance tips. It eventually leads up to a big performance at Apollo, but due to COVID, the Climate Speaks 2020 will happen on Zoom. It was really great either way, but basically, it’s a one big performance. It also gives you opportunities after, like I said, with the bus stop ad and stuff like that and actual performances. There’s Justice for Black Girls, which is a program I started this summer, and it’s all virtual.

The way it works, it’s five weeks of Zoom calls. I believe now the program has been turned into once a month because it’s during the school year. The way it works is that Justice for Black Girls, they’re dedicated to using education in order to combat the system profession that work against Black girls. They call it their Black Girl Education System. We focus on informing people about school to prison pipeline, sexual assault to prison pipeline, edification, stuff like that.

Amber: Hold on, a follow-up question now. You said you started, but to clarify, you mean you started as in you started participating in, or did you mean you started it as in you started that organization?

Kilhah: I started participating in it. I’d love to start an organization one day, but I joined those. I think my most recent one right now I started this September is FINXERUNT. Ugh, I’m messing up the name. It’s like Latin, FINXERUNT. It’s really hard to pronounce, I’ll be honest. Basically, it means imagining free, and it’s a student-led nonprofit organization that’s dedicated to going pass passive activism in order to combat socio-economic issues. I’m personally part of the journalism committee. I write articles about a variety of topics and interview people as well.

Amber: How is being a teen advocate an advantage or a disadvantage? How have you made it work for you?

Kilhah: I think it’s a bit of both, and the advantage is that not like what I said getting new, but you really get to put your voice out there and you got to make positive change in the world, especially since a lot of people have seen that teens, they won’t understand certain things that are happening in the world, but you have to understand that we’re actually going through them with you at the same time. Even though we’re in different age groups, we still are experiencing it, and we may experience as a system of oppression that you personally aren’t experiencing anymore, or haven’t experienced.

I think being a teen advocate and just helping other people exercise their voice is really cool because you get to hear all these different stories. You also get to take something that felt broken and make it slightly less, if that makes sense. I think the disadvantage is that, like I said with teens, you don’t really get taken seriously. A lot of times it’s really frustrating because you don’t want to be seen as overly emotional, even though you may be talking about an issue that doesn’t make you emotional because you don’t want someone to disvalue your experiences.

I think just having adults who are willing to listen is also really great. That actually inspired me to want to do the same for the next generation. It’s like a cycle.

Amber: That leads me to my next question which is, was there a motivating factor in your life that led you to getting involved in amplifying teen voices, or was it a certain person or something else?

Kilhah: I think like I had said earlier with Climate Speaks they really inspire me. I think that’s the first time I ever met with adults outside of my family who actually care about my voice. I guess if I’m going to go to a specific person it was my– I’m sorry my little brother. I can’t help you right now.

Kilhah’s brother: I need help with this.

Kilhah: Your spelling quiz why don’t you do it? I’m so sorry.

Kilhah’s brother: [unintelligible 00:10:53].

Amber: You were talking a little bit about who has influenced you or who motivated you to get involved. You were about to say one specific person.

Kilhah: The one specific person, he was one of the writing mentors for Climate Speaks while I was part of the program, and I think he was the one I spent the most time with. His name is Trace Thepass who passed. I think that’s how you pronounce his name. The way I met him is because he actually went to the same high school with me. One day he was there just promoting Climate Speaks during his first year, and literally, randomly he just came up to my table and he was like, “Do you like writing?” I was going to say no because at the time, I really didn’t like I guess putting myself out there.

Then suddenly my friend is like, “Yes,” she’s like, “She loves writing. That’s what she wants to do.” Basically, they hyped me up and he managed to convince me. I was off about it because I wasn’t sure– I didn’t like putting myself out there like I said before but he managed to convince me. He’s like, “Hey, this is right on Jamaica (Ave.) It’s right on Jamaica. It’s really close. You can just go and see how it is. You don’t have to commit to anything. Just to try it out.” I was originally going to go with a friend but then my friend canceled. Then I was just like, “I already registered. I might as well go.” I really enjoyed it.

Then I just spent more time with Trace because, like I said he was one of the writing mentors and he was the one that spent more time in the program. Seeing his excitement about my work even when I felt so bad about it, all throughout Climate Speaks it was a struggle because I didn’t think that my words would relate at all. Seeing how excited he was and how willing he was to help me, that motivated me to get through it. It also made me want to do the same thing for other people. I think that was the first ever I guess mentor you can say I had.

Amber: Now, you’re involved in teaching and training others both adults and teens in advocacy and amplifying teen voices. How does this affect you? Are you personally feeling the benefit of what you’re doing, or do you think you feel it in the same way as the teens and the adults that you help?

Kilhah: I personally see a benefit in it. I hope everyone else I’m helping feels the same way. I feel like even when you’re a leader or a mentor, whatever you want to call it, you’re not the only one doing the teaching and the helping. I think at the same way the people who you are helping, they also are teaching you alongside the way. There’s always new ideas being brought up onto the table, there’s new perspectives being brought. I actually really enjoy helping and always going through what I’m saying because I felt like after every time I do it, something’s always changing.

Not just because of my perspective changing, it’s because the people I’m helping they’re bringing new information onto the table. If that makes sense. It’s like I said before it’s like a cycle. That’s the only way you can really enjoy it. If you’re actually taking in what the people you’re helping is putting out at the same time. It’s not just being put out there to just sit there, it’s being put out there so you could also take from it, they can take from it and you guys can figure out together a way to make it spread out even further.

Amber: You’re also the kind of person who really I think, takes from and learns from and absorbs and then puts back out all of this in another positive way.

Kilhah: Thank you.

Amber: You are, you build on that circle. You’re a very big part of that and I think that’s a big part of your personality, is that you’re someone who just wants to learn so much and then give so much.

Kilhah: Yes, because I guess only when you’re like– we as people not getting too in-depth about it, but the only way I think a human race can develop is if we are all learning from each other and we are all constantly changing. It’s inevitable. I think we just have to learn ourselves and be open to it because if we’re not then you’re just going to get stuck. That’s when nothing better happens.

Amber: You’re a high school senior this year?

Kilhah: Yes.

Amber: Have you found yourself pulling back because of these added high school senior responsibilities or are you diving in now more than ever?

Kilhah: Now more than ever if I’m going to be honest. You would think that senior year takes up a lot of time, and then of course for some people it does but me personally, with the way my classes are looking, I actually have a lot of free time and I’m also not applying to too many colleges so I’m not too stressed about that either. Actually, Justice for Black Girls and FINXERUNT, those are the two programs I actually joined this year. Then like quarantine and everything with COVID. I actually have more time because I’m constantly at home.

Before with junior year, I was going back and forth between Girls Write Now and all my other programs because you’re scheduling and when you schedule meetings you also have to consider travel time. I was always taking the train. If I had a meeting at 2:00, I had to be like no, I had to be ready to leave wherever I am at around 12:00 because the train and delays and stuff. I think being at home and just with senior year not being as stressful as it is for other people, I actually have so many times to have meetings. Some days I’ll have three meetings during one day and I’m still able to get the work done. I’m actually trying to take the most of my time at home and before I go to college because I know college is going to be a different story in order to have to do as much as I can.

Amber: I was going to ask how the pandemic has affected you, and you answered that, in terms of, you can actually do more now because you don’t have to worry about the travel time.

Kilhah: Yes. At least for me personally. I think I’m only fortunate not to have been so negatively impacted by the pandemic. Yes, since I haven’t then I will do whatever I can to actually do something.

Amber: At school, you’re active in robotics too, right?

Kilhah: Yes.

Amber: Is that still going on or it got on hold because of the pandemic?

Kilhah: It’s on hold. Unfortunately, yes, it’s on hold. The way robotics worked last year is that a lot of the stuff I did, I wasn’t really building stuff or programming, I was mainly going outside of the school in order to promote out program. I started to do it right before COVID. We were going to do a once a month thing, a once a month event- not a thing, a once a month event where we bring the middle school that was close by. We bring them into our school’s innovation lab which is basically an all-purpose system lab, and we’d basically do a bunch of different STEM activities with them like building bridges and growing plants and stuff like that.

We started doing it with a woodshop program. We needed a woodshop day because of COVID, right in the middle of signing it, the very last day I actually went to school physically, we stayed after school to plan out the event, and then come Monday we found out oh wait, we’re not going back to school. The whole thing fell apart.

Amber: I think that’s a story of so many programs that were going on that you have that planned and then oh wait, hold on, never mind.

Kilhah: There’s no way to change that to make it COVID positive.

Amber: No. There’s just not. Aside from knowing me as your Girls Write Now mentor, have you had other librarians in your life?

Kilhah: I don’t remember any of them by name, unfortunately. When I was younger, I always used to go to the library as a kid. It was a thing my mum always did for me and my older sister. Maybe once or twice a week we’d be going to the library getting books and doing homework there whatever.

Amber: Do you remember your local branch?

Kilhah: First it was the Brooklyn library. I don’t know where that was located. It’s one of the really big ones. I’m so bad. It’s in– Then there’s the one in South Jamaica when I moved here during second grade. Those are the two main ones. It was always a public library. It was always a public one, yes.

Amber: Your main memories are probably with the children’s librarians at the moment?

Kilhah: Yes, because I remember always going in them it’s like you need help with the computer, or if you’re looking for a book or if you requested a book online. I think when I was probably before middle school, that’s the most memories I have of librarians and the most times I have with librarians in my life constantly and after that, I fell apart. I guess in a way it all lessened.

Amber: What has been your experience with getting help from librarians for your work in amplifying teen voices?

Kilhah: Close to none. As hard as it is to say but it’s close to none.

Amber: I think part of that is because you haven’t been sure of what kind of help they could offer.

Kilhah: Yes.

Amber: I know there are librarians listening to this who want to know what types of resources might be most helpful to you to do your advocacy work. Do you have an idea of what you would like librarians to provide in the sense that it could be anything? I think people think a lot about librarians only provide books but think of terms of books, written materials, anything from that to providing space, providing experts and training. What can you think of that might be most helpful to you even if it’s something that you don’t think a library would normally provide?

Kilhah: I think mainly just having spaces that would allow work to take place. I know some libraries they have sections just for teens. I think if you had a section that was focused on advocacy, and even though Teen Advocacy that’s what I’m focusing on, I think it would be really cool if it was advocacy in general, it was working with all ages because I think each and every generation, advocacy is actually really a great thing. Just having those rooms that were focused on those work, maybe you could have pamphlets up, maybe you could have a weekly discussion time where everyone who regularly comes in, or anyone who wants to come in can join in and have a talk about any sort of issue want to focus on.

Maybe an area could be for books and writings that reflects the works thinking. Personally, for the Justice for Black Girls, a lot of the materials we use, like I said we use education, we have a Google classroom that’s basically, we have assignments, quote, unquote assignments, you don’t actually have to do them. It was just readings you looked at, but a lot of it was excerpts from books from Audre Lorde and Toni Morrison, all these other articles and just memoirs and stuff like that. I think that would really be great to fill those spaces with those type of books because you can really create the environment while you’re there physically. I think with resources also include events they could do like libraries have that sometimes?

Amber: Yes, sure all the time.

Kilhah: I think having trainings would be dope like just– let me think of an example. I guess I don’t know, training could be for going back to Justice for Black Girls, that’s the most thing I said trainings work but, criminalization, you could talk about the criminalization of black girls and other kids. You can maybe do a seminar on immigration and actually understanding it, and bringing people who are either undocumented or have family undocumented or even lawyers, local lawyers just speak about immigration, stuff like that. I guess you’re letting people have different perspectives and different information taken in.

I think also those workshops shouldn’t just be like, you sit and listen while they talk. It shouldn’t be like a lecture because personally, I have a really bad attention span and I will zone out so quickly.

Amber: How can they structure these workshops to better serve teens?

Kilhah: I’ll use two examples. The first one was, it was a workshop I did where the Climate Museum, it was focused on breaking the climate silence pamphlet which is basically, we’re supposed to bring up climate change and how to combat it and stuff like that. The way it was organized is that they open up an introductory video of a card and wallet, and then they started speaking, then they brought me and two other teen interns to actually speak about our own experience of using the card in real life, how we were talking about Climate Speak actively, like passion stories to it because I think people really enjoy those stories.

Then what happened is for a good chunk of the workshop, we actually broke off into breakout rooms and we decided to role play. We did a role-play activity where one person would take basically like a climate change justice ambassador and you’re trying to get others to speak about it. The other person would be someone who knows about climate change but doesn’t want to speak about it, for whatever reason or, hasn’t the right idea of what climate change is based off assumptions. It’s like playing out how the card would actually work in actual reality in real life. I think that was something that was really fun and it got more people involved, especially since everything is virtual now, we really don’t want to just be having people sit through a zoom screen and just listen to you.

Kilhah: The second example was Justice for Black Girls and the way the program ended over the summer is that all the ambassadors you split into three groups, and we did three different pop-up classes. One of the things that our coordinator Ms. Rihanna Barker, she stressed was that you have to have an interactive activity. I only attended one of them because I was working on my own presentation, but I know for the first pop up class, they had a Kahoot at the end. They went through all the presentations and they advocated everyone on the topic they were talking about. Then they had a Kahoot where everyone joined in and basically, we were all playing it.

Amber: Now, you had better define what a Kahoot is for those who don’t know.

Kilhah: You’re right, so Kahoot is basically– I don’t know how to describe it. It’s basically a website or an app that allows you to make a quiz. The way it’s organized you have four options like a pop-up quiz, and there is really fun music attached to it and you play it like a game. For one quiz, it will show one question at a time, and then let’s say you set the timer for maybe 30 seconds for the questions. Everyone has 30 seconds to click on the answer. The way it works is that you get the most points the fastest you click the answer, the right answer, the fastest you click the right answer, based on time and stuff. It’s basically, it’s so hard to describe [chuckles]. It’s like a quiz game, that’s better yes, quiz game.

Amber: Quiz game, online trivia kind of thing.

Kilhah: Online trivia that you could make yourself—it has a really cool theme song that everyone loves. I remember when the first group was doing it, the person who was leading everyone through it, she was dancing and it felt like a whole fun outing. I think a Kahoot game was to sum it up, or a mini interval, that would work out. I know personally for the pop-up class that my group personally taught on Black Girl Healing, we started off with a meditation, so we had everyone involved in that, then we made sure we had time for discussions. We made five to six questions and we just let people put their answers in the chat, or they get to mute themselves and have their own time to actually speak.

Like I said amplifying their voices when other people speak to the mic, and then we also ended off with a writing prop, which was also interactive. It wasn’t just them writing it and it gets in the way. The way we did it is that we gave them about five minutes to write it, and then we played music during– we gave them five minutes to write and after anyone who wanted to speak, they just put their name in the chat, and I picked on them and I would let them unmute. It’s basically one person would say a line of poetry and the other person would say a line of poetry.

It was just really hyping it. Everyone really got hyped off of it because you see other people sharing all these beautiful words and all these beautiful lines, you want to do the same thing. We got to a point where I couldn’t keep up with the chat. I had 50 plus notifications, and I was still up there. I was like “Guys, you’re killing me right now” but it was really fun.

Amber: I think that’s the dream for a successful library program, is when people can’t keep up with the chat and everyone just having a great time and is really getting a lot out of it. That’s absolutely a dream. Last question, and then I’m going to put you on the spot, so heads up. I’m about to put you on the spot, and I’ll just ask you this question. What are your hopes for the future both for yourself and for the work that you do?

Kilhah: For myself, I hope that I can continue doing work that promotes Teen Voices. I really want to do something similar for the programs I am in right now, not like copy it. I know being in New York I’m really fortunate to have all these wonderful programs, but knowing there’s other states it’s like I don’t want to say less progressive states, I guess less diverse states, they don’t really value as many teen voices the way I really want to value diverse many teen voices. I want to make those programs in other states. They’d be more integral. It shouldn’t just be a city thing, it should be an everywhere thing.

Amber: I think you want to be a mentor too. In ways that to me that you already are. You already a mentor in what you’re doing but I think you want to continue that, right?

Kilhah: Yes, I have been looking into fellowships already even though I’m still in high school, but just anything that would go with not-for-profit work and just elevating those voices.

Amber: You told me you’re doing the journalism internship now, is that right?

Kilhah: Yes, that’s [unintelligible 00:29:13] yes.

Amber: What’s your goal with that?

Kilhah: My goal with that, I just want to keep writing it, I don’t know actually how long their internships lasting for, but I want to really take any skills I learn from interviewing people and writing new articles I want to implement that elsewhere. I’m thinking about actually doing journalism for a career, so that’s something that’s really one of the reasons I decided to do the internship. I just really want to see how we can also throw all these workshops for change into writing and how we can meet more people through that.

Amber: I think with someone as smart and inquisitive and easy to talk to as you are, I think you will have a very good career in journalism.

Kilhah: Thank you.

Amber: Welcome. I think people will want to talk to you and just spill their life stories. I wondered if you would like to share any of your poetry with us.

Kilhah: I could do that.

Amber: I’m going to pause while you find and think about it. All right. Hold on. Kilhah found a poem that she’s going to share and she’s going to introduce and then perform.

Kilhah: My poem’s called Deep Rooted Memories and basically, it uses the rules as a metaphor for just being trapped in a way by society’s pressures, and I guess especially for the woman, or really almost anyone. It depends on your experiences. It just focuses on despite being used, if that makes sense, it’s really hard. I don’t really know. Let me just out with the poetry first off. I’ll do that [chuckles].

  zoom in.
strawberry petals
 branching off of a 
willowy stem,
 stripped of her natural defenses;
disconnected from her roots.  
holding her breath underwater, but
half free to gulp in air. 
tiptoeing the lines of asphyxiation and liberation.
beauty drowns out her screams.

zoom out.
porcelain vases flank her,
celebratory of daily wins 
(silent in times of woe)
together basking in the celestial bodies’ affections,
preening under human wonder,
stowing the finite praise
 away to
 dissect in their minds until gasping sobs 
become the symphony of their nights. 

zoom in.
strawberry darkens crimson, crimson darkens black. 
shriveled brittle tips.
hunched over into herself;
 shielded from cold indifference.
a petal falls off. 
then two.
then three.
 what is she worth now?

zoom out.
crowded in by dark plastic walls 
and foul odor, 
she was moved.
rejected, forgotten, expendable.  
a younger, newer plaything
 holds her spot between the vases.
day by day, night by night
a fresh rose is plucked, put on display and thrown away.
each one’s story is told
 to their admirers, 
mixed together in a facade of being the same.
but before the replacement 
a whisper is exchanged:

“fret not little one,
for the thorns, the patience and the love
of our ancestors flow through your stem.
you will not be forgotten.”

zoom in.
The rose is tall, sturdy and glossy 
against the gazes.
tales of her predecessors' fear and courage keeps her standing
and when it’s her time to go 
she does not wilt, she is not broken.
she is tired but standing. 
she passes the stories of their past to the next 
and whispers “make them proud”..

Amber: Yay. I love that poem. I love how evocative your writing is.

Kilhah: Thank you.

Amber: Thank you for sharing it with us today. Are there any closing thoughts you’d like to share before we sign off?

Kilhah: Listen to Teen Voices and hear us. They don’t like these messages because of our age. That’s something we can’t control [chuckles], but what we can control is what we’re trying to say, what we’re trying to do. I think it’s worth your time to actually just sit back and listen, and also just help us nurture our voices as we age and as we just go on with all this work we’re trying to do.

Amber: Very good advice we should all keep in mind and do. This interview as I said at the beginning, is going to be posted as a podcast for Girls Write Now and it’s also going to be edited because, I think it’ll be very long when typed out, but then included in YALS Teen Voices issue of The YALSA Magazine, which I’m not sure when it comes out, but there it will be. Thank you. I’m going to stop recording now.

Kilhah: Bye.

Amber: Bye. Thank you.

[00:34:56] [END OF AUDIO]

Process

We wrote and submitted a proposal for the interview to YALS. We ended up getting approved. We had the interview over Zoom and later edited the audio using the platform Anchor. Once we had a transcript, YALS edited the transcript and published the article.