It’s not every day that one of my wonderful friends gets a short story printed in a major publication.  But it is today.

I met John Bengan in our MFA program at The New School, and he is part of a cadre of writers I feel especially close to and whose work I particularly admire.

Today, his fantastic vernacular story, “Manny Pacquiao Speaks to a Butterfly in California,” was published in the Philippines Free Press, his native country’s longest-running newsweekly.

This is very, very exciting on many levels, not the least of which being how good the story was the first time I read it in an amazing seminar led by Robert Antoni and how great it remains.  John, we are all very, very proud of this success!