Hillarious column by the Globe's Russell Smith

"Many people ask me how to get a novel published in Canada. With the fall publishing season coming up, and a lot of new books and authors about to be released, it’s time to reveal some tips.
"First, remember that it is always 1955 in Canlit. That is not to say that every prizewinning novel must be set exactly in that year, but that it helps to imagine that you are writing in that year. Imagine that you are writing by hand or at the very least on a manual typewriter (even if you are writing on a cellphone and playing Call of Duty and checking your ex-lover’s hacked Facebook messages and the updates from Comic-Con every 30 seconds). . . ."
The whole amusing read