WHB English teacher Mr. Dawson has had many students, but none have ever taken on a momentous task like this one. Many adults consider this task a full time job. This full time student also helps out his parents at their local gas station in East Moriches, yet he still finds time for this project.
Last August, senior Alaaddin Baskurt decided to take on the challenging task of writing a full-length novel. Alaaddin is 17 years old and has been living in East Moriches for six years. He grew up with his older brother Sal Baskurt.
To those who do not know him they may think he is just an ordinary teen helping out at his parent’s local Valero gas station in East Moriches, but his teacher Mr. Dawson describes him as “an interesting and thoughtful young man.”
Alaaddin discussed how he got into reading. “I liked reading since I was little and read many of Kurt Vonnegutt’s books.” He continued, “My favorite author is Sam Savage and everyone should read his book Firmin which is about a rat.” A Canadian musician and writer, Spence Krug, inspired him. Many of the concepts for his book came from songs from the band Sunset Rubdown.
The story is about an orphan child who has a destiny to become a dragon slayer. To many this may seem like an awesome destiny, but the journey to stop evil is not as appealing to the young man. There is nothing that he wants to do, so he ends up doing it anyway even tough it is not that important to him. Mr. Dawson says Alaaddin’s “imagery and attention to detail” is unique. Alaaddin’s main goal of the book is to “develop a book in which the reader can develop their own message about life.”
Alaaddin writes about two times a week for 45 minutes. Writing takes a lot of effort. “It is also very tiring and frustrating,” he said. It is not all terrible because writing will give him “satisfaction and fulfillment for completing the book.”
In college Alaaddin plans to study English and philosophy. He received a scholarship from St. John’s. He plans to write additional stories about philosophy because he “feels that not enough people read about philosophy and it is an underappreciated subject.” He is “not excited about college” like most other students at Westhampton Beach. This is because he thinks “super structures stop him from doing things he would rather be doing such as go to Montréal to live as a hermit, reindeer herder, or wandering philosopher.”
Besides writing, Alaaddin also enjoys playing various instruments. He has been playing the guitar for a few years. He was inspired to start playing because of his favorite band, Modest Mouse. Recently he also started to play the keyboard because of his enjoyment of Spencer Krug’s music. Some of his favorite bands include “Moonface, Modest Mouse, Sunset Rubdown, Swan Lake, Built to Spill, Wolf Parade, and Frog Eyes.” Alaaddin as recently just started a band named Tremendous Tyrannosaurus Tremendous with Rouke Sekelsky and Jack Vicari, but between writing a book and school it will be a difficult task to juggle.