[1][2] In 1968, he finished his MFA at the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop,[1] where he studied with Nelson Algren, Kurt Vonnegut, Jorge Luis Borges,[2] Richard Yates, Robert Coover and José Donoso.
Leonard and Paul also co-wrote Blue Collar (1978), a story of defiant auto-workers in Detroit, directed by Paul Schrader starring Richard Pryor, Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel, and Old Boyfriends (1979), about a woman's cross-country trek to visit old flames, directed by Joan Tewkesbury and starring John Belushi, Talia Shire, Keith Carradine, John Houseman.
Schrader's background in Latin American literature and Weisman's experience with Brazil led them to develop Kiss of the Spider Woman together.
For a decade after the author's ritual suicide in 1970, Schrader pursued the rights to Mishima's life, and working with his wife Chieko and brother Paul, he co-wrote the Japanese-language bio-pic Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters executive-produced in 1984 by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Paul Schrader.
Produced in Argentina, with the 1925 period 'look' overseen by Oscar-winning designer Milena Canonero, the independent film starred Vincent D'Onofrio, Mathilda May, Esai Morales, and the late Fernando Rey.