My life was definitely going into a nosedive. When my parents separated (and) divorced when I was fifteen, I definitely lost my bearings and was completely out of control. My grades were plummeting. I had no direction. I was a pretty angry teenager (and) somewhat destructive. So, I broke down in a church when I was 18 and turned my life over to God, thankfully.

Well, part of it is the general fascination with the Amish. It's an extremely popular genre and Beverly Lewis just happens to have the market cornered. She is the bestselling author in this genre. We had actually optioned another one of her Amish books, The Redemption of Sarah Cain. We retitled it Saving Sarah Cain and it did extremely well for Lifetime so we pursued more of her novels.

I mean these are universal themes. I try not to preach, for sure. I don't enjoy movies that preach - so I don't want to preach myself when I tell stories because I just feel all of these themes are built into us in terms of redemption and mercy and love and compassion and all these things. And the negative sides, as well.

I just gravitated toward (working behind the scenes by) growing up on the different sets and watching my father and other people in their different capacities...When I was 13 years old, I asked for a Super 8 camera.

I think I was respectful to my father in that I only told the portions that he had already told. So, I never went outside of the things that he had already stated in his article because then I think it becomes unfair.

Well, I kind of approach both of them similarly in (that) I always see it as a movie first because that's my background. Cindy Kelley, who has been my writing partner on my novels, she works more on the prose side and the description side of the storytelling because, obviously, there's a lot more of that in a novel than in a screenplay. You only have up to 120 pages in a screenplay.

Usually it's just material that resonates with me and I never know exactly what that's gonna be. And there's obviously a certain persuasion, if you will. It's dependent upon the fact that I'm known for certain genres. So, that influences my decision making as well. I mean I'd love to, for example, do an action thriller but there are a lot of very talented people doing that and so it would be very difficult for me to switch over to that genre. So, I do look for things that I know (will resonate with) my audience.