Teri Sforza

Teri Sforza is a journalist, author, filmmaker and mom. She contributed to the Orange County Register's Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of fertility fraud at UC Irvine, covered what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in America‘s history, and is the author of "The Strangest Song," the first book to tell the story of Williams syndrome and the extraordinary musicality of many of the people who have it. Sforza harnessed the power of the moving image to bring her stories to life, earning her M.F.A. from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, and has made two documentaries - "American Pie: Slices of Life (and pie) on America's Back Roads," which won the Audience Choice Award at the Palm Springs International Short Film Festival; and the OC Register's "The Boy Monk," the story of a boy from the SoCal suburbs who goes to India to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk. That story was also told as a series in the newspaper. Sforza birthed the Watchdog column aiming to keep a critical (but good-humored) eye on governments and nonprofits, large and small.