J. Leland Kupferberg

J. Leland Kupferberg is an owner of, and artistic participant in, the newly launched website PatronQuo.com - a unique online inititiative to promote fiction writers through a patronage model. With an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, Mr. Kupferberg writes his prose with a screenwriter's ear for rhythm.

Mr. Kupferberg and his Russian partner, Dmitry - in actual fact, an immigrant programmer he sometimes keeps manacled to the wall in his basement dungeon - came up with the idea for PatronQuo in recognition of the fact that there was a large sub-population of unheralded, highly talented writers who, like Mr. Kupferberg, dwelled alone in their own basement dungeons - unread, unappreciated, unwashed - subsisting on little more than the fuel of their own frustrated creative, egg-shell-thin, egos.

Too lazy to pay his "dues" by sending out an endless stream of sure-to-be-rejected query letters, Mr. Kupferberg decided to take a less time-consuming, more budget-conscious plan of action: He abducted a Russian programmer off the street.

Keeping him on a low-calorie diet, Mr. Kupferberg put his programmer to work, creating the functions he would need to realize his dream for himself and the larger literary community: an alternative online vehicle for artists to take their case directly to the public, as they challenge readers and advertisers alike to step up and offer their support in the form of patronage for their favorite artists.

Prior to the recent launch of PatronQuo.com, Mr. Kupferberg's fiction writing has never before been unveiled in a public forum. Given his confidence in the potential commercial appeal of his stories, Mr. Kupferberg now challenges all talented comers, published and unpublished alike, to post their best work on PatronQuo.com - and throws down the gauntlet for them to prove, in a literary death match, that they deserve to dine out on their talents more than he has any right to expect for himself.