Retrieving memories of and writing about your own past can be challenging enough. Recounting someone else’s life history – enabling readers to actually see it unfold through the eyes of your subject and doing so convincingly – can be even more daunting. In writing the memoir Beggars or Angels (August 2013, Oaklight Publishing) for an amazing woman who’s lived through enough drama and hardship to fill two lifetimes, I had two main goals: