We hosted the December #CanLit chat on Thursday, December 1, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET. The theme was "2011 in Canadian literature: the good, the bad and the ugly."

Plenty of people from every aspect of publishing came by to share their thoughts. Three major themes emerged:

1) Change can be good, but change can also be bad. It was nice to see new things tried by Canada Reads, the Scotiabank Giller Prize and others, but not everything worked.

2) CanLit grew beyond the stereotypical definition of "Canadian literature" this year, but this growth wasn't enough. There needs to be more space for new voices, genre fiction and non-traditional writers, readers and publishers.

3) While the attention heralded on some authors was wonderful to see, many deserving authors flew under the radar.