An Easy Existential Approach to High School and University Essay Writing

By Prof. J. M. Yates and Dr. Hongyun Chen

ISBN: 978-0-9808971-3-5

Price: $26.99

About the book:

This book is the crystallization of the joint effort of Canada’s well known writer/professor J. Michael Yates and his wife Dr. Hongyun Chen. They have been teaching essay writing for more than ten years and sent numerous students to famous universities such as Harvard, Cornell, and Oxford. The book is done at the request of their students, so more people can benefit from their teaching. In the book they use simple yet vivid and humorous language to teach you how to write almost any kind of essay, and provides you with close to a hundred sample essays for TOEFL, SAT, LPI, IELTS, BC Provincial Exams, University Applications, etc, some of which are written by Prof. Yates and Dr. Chen themselves. More importantly, they use existentialism and their own life stories as tools to help you find your true destiny in this intricate society, thus maintaining your individuality while going through the system. If you want to once and for all tackle the writing problem, enter the university you really want to attend, and maybe discover the meaning of life, this book is a must-read.

To order, please go to www.cacanadadada.com

      Or email hongyun@shaw.ca 

      Or call 604-430-4077

Praise for An Easy Existentialist Approach to High School and University Essay Writing

Harvard: I’ve passed this manuscript around among undergrad students. Thumbs up across the board. From all of us, thanks. —Jesus Javier Chong Wu

Cornell University: I just want to let you know how much I appreciate the help I got from you (Dr. Chen) and Prof. Yates on writing. That’s about the only subject I am excelling at Cornell. —James Hu

University of Toronto: You saved my life. Thank you so much for all the things you taught me. —Tim Lu, Student

Beijing University: Fresh, fluid, and exciting; a welcome relief from the monotony of other  formulaic essay guides. —Liuyi Dong

University of British Columbia: This is the best essay book I have ever read. —Kavan Yao

University of Manitoba: …the focus is excellent, the examples immediate and lucid, the writing quick and lean, even athletic in its direct movement from one point to the next. —Professor George Amabile

Ohio: I am adopting this as a text for my fall composition courses. —Professor Joanne Ford

Jacket Copy: This is a shocking book. An Easy Existential Approach to High School and University Essay Writing breaks all the rules of textbook tradition in the service of providing a guerrilla warfare course in essay-writing. To Chen and Yates, the academic essay is not holy; it is simply another hoop—an abiding and grinding hoop—in the paper chase. Education doesn’t begin until the potential thinker finishes his last degree. The authors suggest that the highest grades in the class should be a given—given how easy it is to streamline study methods and out-dance the clumsy juggernauts of institutional learning.

This book conspires with students to survive the systems in which they find themselves.

No more the presence-less author/editor. Chen and Yates speak of their lives both in essays and in text as they do of the lives of the students who wrote the sample essays. This book is heretical in every way. The text writing establishment will anathematize it.

This is fine with the authors who commented in a recent interview, “We’ve done our best to make a mockery of conventional textbooks, headings, etc. If this book were a person, it could be tried for sedition, insurrection, and middle finger at the establishment.”

I have two sons, one a senior in high school, the other in third year of university. I gave them copies and they sneered at the idea of an essay-writing book. Until they opened it. I have caught them reading funny passages and the book has become a permanent fixture on their desks along with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Nintendo DS Lite.

Any student who seeks to own his academic future instead of being owned by it, make top grades, and fetch scholarships will find An Easy Existential Approach to High School and University Essay Writing an essential tool. —Harold Broom

Praise for the works of the authors:

“To an exceptional teacher: Whom I have always looked up to, whom I have learned so much from, who always laughs at me, not with me, who has extraordinary wisdom and experience, yet still has the heart of a child, who is fun-loving and an amazing story teller, who is well traveled, and captures breath-taking pictures, who writes so beautifully, yet illegibly, who is not afraid of making fun of himself, who is tall, handsome, and apparently aging very well…”—Crystal Li, 2005 Miss Chinese (Vancouver).

“Thank you so much for all the things you taught me.” —Lily Li

“When Yates and I first met and lunched at the University of Missouri, he was an undergraduate. His work was brilliant then. This I told him and his department head.” —W. H. Auden, QUEST

“I appreciate this poet’s concentration, swiftness, density: his choice for the deeply personal utterance, and that only. He wastes no time with exercises, set themes, and other conventional maneuvers.” —Henry Rago, editor Poetry

“Each word is beautifully set, and in many of them the effect of the whole poem is of gentle flooding light—as of a honeycomb breaking and dissolving in the mind.” —Keith Harrison, Canadian Literature

“This young writer, unlike most, is fearless in matters of dangerous themes and dialogue which will come clearly over the lights.” Arthur Miller (as judge of Yates’ Major Hopwood Award winning manuscript. Subjunction)

“With great admiration for your work.” —Joyce Carol Oates

“…a wonder—a book of rich, round clarities which can be read from beginning to end like a novel or opened anywhere and sampled at random. Whatever way it is read, the result is enjoyment and understanding, and awe.”—John Newlove

“In the frozen, colorless landscapes and the ‘mad light’ of the aurora, he finds a full mystery and a barbaric absence at the same time: for Yates it resembles the inner space of awareness, a territory he has always explored brilliantly.” —Marni Jackson, The Toronto Star

“He is violent and unpredictable…has a wild, unconventional imagination…”—James Dickey

“Dangerous minds investigate dangerous places in the mind. Most of your work lives in these places.” —Yehuda Amichai

“Yates is singular in that he writes like himself; he has no leaders, no fellow travelers… He lives on intimate terms with fact and imagination—the result is this rare purity of language.” —Charles Lillard, The Malahat Review

 “Michael Yates is a great poet who has given us such a universe. I consider his Great Bear Lake Meditations to be by far the most ambitious and successful meditative poem ever written in Canada, and his other work falls short not in excellence but in scope of that masterpiece. In his hands, rhythms and words have resonances that vibrate to the farthest shores of consciousness.” —Fred Cogswell

“If the other Yeats had read the poetry of this Yates, he’d have put down his pen and gone to bed early.” —John Newlove         

“There is a world of shadows and darkness in Yates’ dream-like landscapes, often a mysterious darkness and sombreness of tones; at other times there is a cold brilliance of colors…often distracting, sometimes coldly silent and awesome, sometimes disturbing in their timelessness.” —Glen A. Sorestad

“This is a book to read and reread with increasing delight at the subtlety of its structures and the power of its insight. It is a book to keep and to quote from.” —Robin Skelton

“An all-or-nothing writer with a beautifully alert intelligence.” —Al Purdy

“Yates evokes the primal sense of wonder.” —Ronald B. Hatch, UofT Quarterly

“One of the most lively and original writers of his generation.” —Robin Skelton

“Yates is the best abstract poet I’ve read.” —William L. Fox, West Coast Poetry Review

“Writing a bad poem is very easy. Almost anybody can do it, and damned near everybody does. Writing a good poem is virtually impossible. One of the few people in this country who can do it is J. Michael Yates.” —George Jonas

 “[Yates] has a unique way of responding to the world” —John Robert Colombo

“A truly extraordinary man…one hell of a poet.” —Peter Gzowski, Morningside, CBC network

“It is rare to come across a book that one can, with absolute certainty, place immediately on the shelf reserved for works one cannot do without.” —Robin Skelton in the Victoria Daily Times

“If Yates’s work isn’t trend-setting, it will be because other writers won’t be able to match it.” —Andreas Schroeder in The Vancouver Province

“Your [Hongyun’s] works can always touch me. Honestly. Like “My Father,” it reminded me of my own father when I read it the other day and it almost made me cry.” —Deqing Tong

“Reading Hongyun’s works reminds me of big names in literature. Her themes are classical; her soul goes beyond the mundane; and her words are lean and smooth. All these, drop by drop, land on the softest and most sensitive nerves of humanity.” —Linda Chen

“Every time I read your articles, I feel I know you a bit more and also learn about the world a bit more.” –Ruixi

“I always like to read what you write. My high school friend, D. J. Wang, also loves your writings. He reads every article of yours although he is a busy professor at a university in N.J.” –Hanbin

“I like your articles and enjoy very much reading them. They are so intelligent.” —Shiwei

“Enjoy reading your articles. They are always touching. The other day I found more of your writings about your childhood and family. They are pure, simple, and moving.” --Sara Li

“Always enjoy your articles.” –Shende

“Read your column on the Internet. Very good. Continue.” –F. H. Zhang

About the authors：

J. Michael “Mikey” Yates was born in Fulton, Missouri, and did graduate degrees at the Universities of Missouri and Michigan. He has been everything from a Distinguished Professor of literature to a much commended SWAT-team member. Interspersed are jobs as a logger, motorcycle racer, and broadcast executive both for CBC and private media in the United States. He is holder of two international Advertising awards.

But above all, Mikey Yates is a widely published author of poetry, fiction, drama, translations, and philosophical essays. His works have been translated into most of the western languages and some eastern ones, and his drama for radio, television, and stage have been produced both nationally and internationally. The literary prizes he has won include the Major Hopwood Awards (both poetry and drama the same year) and the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Arts and Sciences from University of Missouri.

For the past ten years Yates has been tutoring languages, literature, and history of ideas with his wife, Hongyun, and sons, Myron and Kavan.

Hongyun Chen was born in Linchuan, Jianxi, and did degrees at the Second Military Medical College (M.D.) and the University of New Brunswick (Ph.D.). She has worked in two pharmaceutical companies as Senior Research Scientist and Director, respectively.

She started her writing for Chinese Electronic Magazines around 1995 and hasn’t stopped since. Her essays and short stories have been widely published in Chinese and English both in North America and China. Some of them are collected in Under the American Sky by China Press, Selection of Contemporary Global Chinese Poems and Prose by Tianya Literature Press, The Maple Leaves’ Inquiry of Civil Wind by Hebei People’s Publisher, and Do You Know How to Love by Cacanadadada Press. One essay and one short story of hers won Chinese literary prizes in the United States.

An Easy Existential Approach to High School and University Essay Writing

存在主义者的简易高中及大学作文指南

叶兹教授和陈红韵博士著

ISBN: 978-0-9808971-3-5

价格: $26.99

关于此书：

本书是加拿大著名作家教授叶兹和他的妻子陈红韵博士联手合作的结晶。他们从事英文教学十余年，将无数华人子弟送进如哈佛，康纳尔，牛顿等名校。本书就是根据众多学生的要求写成的。书中用浅显易懂又活泼幽默的语言教你如何写作，并列举了近百篇托福、ＳＡＴ、ＬＰＩ、雅思、BC省试、大学申请等范文，一部分由叶兹教授和陈红韵博士亲自撰写。更重要的是，他们还用存在主义和他们自己的故事做引子，教你如何在纷繁的社会里找到自己真正的使命，从而在体制内保有自己独特的个性。如果您想一劳永逸地攻克写作这个难题，进到自己想进的大学，甚至发掘生命的意义，本书不可不读。

买书请进 www.cacanadadada.com

或email hongyun@shaw.ca 

或电 604-430-4077

对此书的赞语：

哈佛：我将这本书给很多大学生看过。他们赞声连连。我代表大家谢谢你们。—Jesus Javier Chong Wu

康奈尔大学：真的是非常感谢你们教会了我写作：这大概是我在康奈尔唯一做得非常棒的事情。—James Hu

多伦多大学：你们救了我的命。非常感谢你们为我所作的一切。—Tim Lu

北大：新鲜，流畅，激动人心；这是一本跟别的单调的作文指南完全不同的书。—Liuyi Dong

不列颠哥伦比亚大学：这是我读过的最好的关于怎样写作文的书。—Kavan Yao

曼尼托巴大学：聚焦出色，例子清晰明快，著述迅速精干，在其从一个点到下一个点的直接变化中甚至像运动员般敏捷。—George Amabile教授

俄亥俄：我将用这本书做我秋季写作课的的教材。—Joanne Ford教授

封底评语：这是一本令人震撼的书。在作者眼里，任何人都能学好写作并拿到高分，只要你知道它的秘诀。

我有两个儿子，一个在高中，另一个是大学三年级学生。我给他们这本书后，他们的第一反应是嘲笑。但把书打开后他们却再也放它不下。

任何学生，如果想在学校拿到顶尖成绩，获取奖学金，都会发现这本书是一个不可或缺的工具。—Harold Broom

对作者其它著作的赞语：

给一位非常特殊的老师：一个我一直仰望着的，教会我很多的，总是笑话我，而不是跟我一起笑的，具有非凡智慧和经验的，仍然拥有童心的，有趣的和很会讲故事的，旅行过很多地方的，用照片捕捉到很多美景的，字写得非常美妙却又无法辨认的，从不害怕取笑自己的，高大，英俊，而且显然老得非常优雅的人······—Crystal Li, 2005年的中国（温哥华）小姐。

非常感谢你们教给我的一切。 —Lily Li

当叶兹与我第一次在密苏里大学见面并共进午餐时，他还是一名大学生。那时我就告诉了他的系主任他写的东西是多么出色。—W. H. Auden, QUEST

我非常欣赏这个诗人的专心，速度，和密度：他选择的都是很深刻很个人的话题，而且只有这个。他从不浪费时间演习，设置主题，和做其他常规性的事情。—Henry Rago

每个字都漂亮地放在那里，加起来整个诗便变成一束温柔地泛滥着的光—就像一个蜂巢在脑海里打破并消散一样。—Keith Harrison

跟大多数人不一样，这位年轻的作家在危险的主题和对话方面无一丝畏惧并表达得清晰明了。—阿瑟米勒（叶兹的霍普伍德获奖手稿的评委之一。）

我对你的作品怀着极大的敬意。—Joyce Carol Oates

一个奇迹，一本丰富、全面、明了的书；可以像小说一样从头读到尾或打开任何一页随机读起来。无论怎样阅读，结果都是享受、理解、敬畏。—John Newlove

······

寄北（陈红韵）是位很会整理思绪的女子。包括顺暢的，纷乱的，愉快的，不愉快的，感伤的，缠绵的以及受了损害的和丈夫有了外遇的……在论及自己的创作时，寄北有过一段很诗意的概括。她说“鸟飞过，天空也许无痕，但当亲人，朋友，熟悉的和不熟悉的陌生人一一在心坎里走过，印记却无处不在，有时甚至深入骨髓。我一直觉得很幸运，无论是亲情爱情友情，一样都不缺。这些情时而汹湧时而平缓地流过心田，被我点点滴滴记在了朴素天真的文字里，为了感激，也为了分享。”

“一直觉得很幸运”绝不是一种说在嘴上的“感恩”意向。在寄北这里，是一种心灵幸福的价值内容，是与生命美感紧紧联系在一起的。无论她写母亲，还是写父亲；也无论她写朋友，还是写情人，甚或写身边发生的琐琐细细，统统都带着她独有的文化价值关照和纯粹是她自己的对美的理解和闸释。

寄北的散文很有韵律感。文字节奏，情绪节奏，色彩节奏都很讲究。从笔者前面引述的那段她的创作自述中，可以清晰地感觉到。这样的例子在她的散文中隨处可以找到。

解读寄北的情感审美实践，今天，对海内海外的任何一个人都应该是有所启示的。如果真的人生不如意十之八九的话，那么，请读读寄北吧，相信你的灵魂可以在这里得到抚慰。一林楠

你的作品总是能打动我的心，真的。就象“我的父亲”，让我想起了我自己的父亲，几乎让我落泪。一童德清

今天上网看了你的文章和诗词，很喜欢。人生如流水，生命如歌，在这个混沌的世界中，你用字符流淌出你的思想，带给人们一缕清爽的风，帮助人们在自我和客体的世界中保持平衡。你的心灵也因此寻找到前世注定的宁静港湾，幸福环绕着你。我为你感到很高兴，祝你健康＼幸福＼快乐！一石宝胜

第一次读寄北的文章，字里行间读起来竟是如此相知的感觉。她的语言很平和，甚至有些说话的絮絮然，细读起来起来却又如此绵软让人心生感动和回味，看她写的成都美女一阿文，短短的几句结尾，让人怅然中又想，寄北又是怎样的一个温婉可人的女子呢？一欣桐

读寄北的文字，会让人想起文坛上的大家，她表现的题材都非常经典，心灵超越，用字精髓，点点滴滴都落在人性最柔软敏感的神经关节上。一陈瑞林

此文（“丈夫有了外遇以后”）对所有的女性，不管婚姻幸福或是不幸福，离婚或是不离婚，都有激励作用。一小林

非常欣赏你的文章。谢谢你给我们写了那么多深入浅出的好文章！一海伦

中国高等教育出版社希望将您的“我的父亲”一文录入为哈佛大学出版的教材中。一王丽

每一次读你的文章，我都觉得对你了解了一点，也对世界了解了一点。一瑞希

我一直喜欢读你的文章。我高中的朋友王也很喜欢你的文章；他每篇都看，虽然他是平时很忙的新泽西一个大学的教授。一寒冰

我看您的文章，觉得您对生活很有目光，灵秀乐观通达。在北美大家的脚步天天都是匆匆的，几乎没有时间来观察体会生活，但每个小事你都能写活了；没有对生活的热爱是不可能的。一金涛

我喜欢你的文章；读起来很愉快。一世伟

很喜欢读你的文章。他们总是很感人。前些天我读到你写的关于你童年和家庭的文章；他们是那样的纯粹，简单，动人。一萨娜

一直很喜欢你的短文。一申得

在银河网读到你的专栏，很不错啊！继续下去。一FH 张

关于作者：

叶兹，加拿大著名作家，诗人。出生于美国密苏里州，密西根大学比较文学博士。他的作品面非常广，涉及诗歌，小说，戏剧，翻译，哲学散文等诸多领域。他得奖无数，包括有名的ＨＯＰＷＯＯＤ奖（诗歌和戏剧两项）及密苏里大学的终生成就奖。著名的美国戏剧家阿瑟米勒对他赞赏有加，称他在危险的主题和对话方面“无一丝畏惧”。他的作品已被翻译成多种东方语言和几乎所有的西方语言。他曾在美国和加拿大多所大学做教授，也当过伐木工人，摩托车赛车手，电台主管，摄影师，出版商，甚至监狱看守等。现在他和他的太太在他们的温哥华家里教授语言（他翻译１７种文字）及其它课目。

陈红韵，笔名寄北，网上著名写手。原籍江西临川，毕业于上海第二军医大学军医系（M.D.）和新布朗威克大学分子生物系（Ph.D.）曾在两家制药公司做过高级研究员和部门主任，现为教师和自由撰稿人。

她自1995年开始写作，作品散见于国内外中英文报纸和多种电子杂志，部分散文和小说被收录在中国社会出版社出版的《美利坚的天空下》，河北人民出版社出版的《枫叶叩问的国风》，美国天涯文艺出版社的《当代世界华人诗文精选》，和加加拿大大大出版社的《你知道怎么爱吗？》等选集或选本里；一篇散文和一篇小说在美国获奖。