Rebecca Eckler uses Twitter to dun publisher

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This article was published 10/6/2011 (2926 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CANADIAN author and journalist Rebecca Eckler may inspire a new use for social media: debt collection.

Eckler, author of the bestselling memoir Knocked Up, turned to Twitter to air grievances with troubled Key Porter Books, which shut down operations this spring after publishing Eckler's latest novel, The Lucky Sperm Club.

This week, Eckler sent out several tweets, including one under the hash tag #nomorenicegirl that read: "So, Key Porter owes me $9,000. No small change friends." (The rest is unpublishable in a family newspaper.)

Eckler told Quill & Quire, Canada's publishing trade magazine, that Key Porter has ignored both herself and her agents. She also said she bought her books back and is working with Indigo to get copies in stores.

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In her continuing efforts to create inspiring disabled heroes for young readers, Winnipeg author and publisher Sarah Yates has produced a new young adult novel about a youth afflicted with cerebral palsy.

The book, Lucky Lou Gets Game, was a nominee in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Competition. Yates will sign copies at the St. Vital Chapters store on June 11.

Yates formed Gemma B. Publishing in 1992; the company is named after her daughter, who was born with CP. The author's first three books — Can't You Be Still, Nobody Knows! and Here's What I Mean to Say..., were a series for children also featuring a young heroine with the same disease.

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Academics Rhonda Hinther of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights and Jim Mochoruk of the University of North Dakota's history department have co-edited a new collection of historic essays providing fresh perspective on Ukrainian-Canadian experience.

Re-Imagining Ukrainian-Canadians: History, Politics, and Identity re-examines the recurring portrayal of Ukrainians as "sturdy pioneer farmers," Mochoruk says. Immigrants were in fact also writers, intellectuals, national organizers and urban dwellers, the book details.

They will launch the book June 23 at McNally Robinson.

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Canadian comics artist Jeff Lemire's series Essex County, a 2010 finalist for CBC's Canada Reads competition, is being brought to the big screen by director and legendary special effects maestro John Dykstra (Star Wars), reports move industry trade mag Variety.

The Oscar-winning Dykstra will make his directorial debut with Super Zero, based on the Tales from the Farm chapter of Lemire's acclaimed series.

The story concerns a 10-year-old boy on his uncle's farm who creates a private fantasy world for himself.

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Almost 130 years later, the British Library will publish the first-ever edition of Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle's debut novel this September.

Left unfinished, The Narrative of John Smith concerns a gout-stricken 50-year-old man who contemplates literature, science, religion, and war.

Jon Lellenberg, one of the book's editors, told the National Post that certain characters foreshadow later, more famous fictional personalities such as Holmes's compatriot Dr. Watson.

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