About

SAMANTHA TERZIS, CI/CT

Interpreter / Instructor / Speaker / Writer / Lighting Designer

HER PERSONAL STORY IN SUMMARY:

Samantha's story comes in two parts. In part one, she was born in Phoenix, and raised in San Diego County as a second-generation Greek American. Her life was surrounded by two common partners, beauty and drama. In part two, her tale takes on a new plot line, when at the age of 42 she discovered she was adopted, and the depth of her unique personal story then unfolds with a thousand unexpected twists and turns.

HER GENERAL STORY IN SUMMARY:

After having been raised in Oceanside, CA [famous for the movie Top Gun] Samantha divided her time between Santa Barbara and San Diego Counties to merge her education into one perfect Sam shaped experience. Attending Westmont College in the beautiful city of Montecito (known for the endless famous faces seen driving the streets) Samantha chose to study Art/Theatre receiving a Bachelor's Degree and with that an endless onslaught of incredible memories. During the Summers she attended Palomar College in San Marcos, CA studying Sign Language Interpreting and there she found her love for sign language on the stage.

Samantha moved to Nashville, TN in 1995 to work as a Performance Sign Language Interpreter in the Music Industry. As time moved on, Samantha saw the intense need for accessibility services for the Deaf, and together with a small ground of Deaf Community members she began a non-profit organization called Gate Communications. Since its inception Gate has held the largest Deaf events in Tennessee, has educated Sign Language students as far away as Australia, has interpreted for the top artists in the Music Industry, has taught workshops in 23 states, and has worked with the Deaf and Interpreting Communities in multiple countries throughout the world. Samantha has been blessed to be there for the entire journey. In 2014, Sam authored her first book GET REAL: A Real Look at Interpreting which targets the realities of interpreting for the Deaf with a sarcastic, comedic, and confrontive look at the field.

In addition to her decades of work in the Deaf Community, she has spent most of her life with her hands on Lighting Consoles in the theatre, at concerts, and in churches. She retired as an LD in recent years in order to focus all her time on her work with the Deaf, however there isn't a day she doesn't miss creating art with light.

Sam's ultimate dream is to leave the world a better place than it was when she arrived, and her hope is that through this blog, others can find a new and powerful level of FREEDOM.