Growing up around Amish farmland, I enjoyed the opportunity to witness firsthand their love of family, of the domestic arts - sewing, quilting, cooking, baking - as well as seeing them live out their tradition of faith in such a unique way.

I'm a writer; it's not just what I do, but who I am.

If you're a good Amish girl, you're courting, you have three or four different beaus, and you go out and stay out all night. That's just their tradition. They date under the covering of night. No one knows who they're dating or seeing until two weeks before they're going to be married. It's how they've done it for 300 years.

I've met men who've stood in long lines on my book tours, and they've said things like, 'I've read your books and they've changed the direction in my life, and I want to thank you.' I think they're standing in line for their wife or their mother or their sweetheart or somebody, but no.

The adrenaline is like nothing else. You might be tired or whatever else, but when you get on that stage and see people reacting there's nothing like it. It's a bit god-like - that feeling that nothing can feel better.

There's no question that homophobia is rampant among the world's 1.5 billion Muslims - but that doesn't negate the fact that there are huge groups of Muslims who have easily reconciled their faith and sexual orientation, like LGBT people in other faith communities.

My mom, how she raised me, my brothers, my cousins, when I was a kid with one bedroom for 12 people... You think about all that, and God blessed me to get somewhere and do something I love and do something I've done since I was a kid. And blessed me with the talent to do it.

I'd be saying, 'No, I'm so not a DJ, I'm a producer.' But no matter how much faith you may have in yourself, until you have a hit you can't really run around telling everyone you're a producer.