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Zarqa Nawaz is a Canadian film maker and comedy writer whose material is inspired by the challenges of being a practising Muslim in North America. She created a comedy called Little Mosque on the Prairie for Canadian television and has now written a frank book about her life called Laughing all the Way to the Mosque.

The singer songwriter Joan Armatrading has been known for the raw emotion of her music ever since Love and Affection made her an international star in 1976. Joan Armatrading was born in St Kitts in the Caribbean, but moved to Birmingham in the UK when she was seven years old. Now, after 20 albums and 42 years on stage Joan says her current world tour will be her last. It is also the first in which she's performing completely alone on stage, with no backing band.

Michaela DePrince's was born in Sierra Leone and lost both her parents during that country's brutal and bloody civil war. But one day, she came across a page torn from a magazine which featured a picture of a beautiful ballerina. In a new book called Hope in a Ballet Shoe赂 Michaela tells how she was adopted by an American couple and taken to live in the US where she trained in classical dance. She's now a member of the Dutch National Ballet.

When Jean Jude was a child growing up in France he was told that his family couldn't afford a piano. So he secretly saved up his pocket money to pay for piano lessons. That childhood passion ended up taking over his life. Not only did he become a music teacher, but he started collecting pianos. Now he has over 180 instruments and has turned his home in the city of Tours into what he calls a "piano orphanage".

For many parts of Asia, it's New Year on 19 February. As Vietnam prepares for its biggest celebration of the year, David Amanor is joined by two Vietnamese journalists from the Fifth Floor, Hami and Ly Truong, to find out how they would spend it.

Image: Zarqa Nawaz, Michaela DePrince (credit Jade Young), Jean Jude.