Like the pilgrims in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales who pass the time telling stories while stranded in the Tabard Inn, Memorandum from the Iowa Cloud Appreciation Society tells the tale of a traveling salesman and what really happened over the course of his forty- six years.

Joseph G. Peterson works in publishing. He is the author of Inside the Whale: A Novel in Verse, and Beautiful Piece, also published by Northern Illinois University Press. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters.