Ben Turk is a writer of anarchist prose and abolitionist scholarship from Milwaukee Wisconsin.
In 2018 he received a masters degree in creative writing from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee after deciding to end a life of touring with Insurgent Theatre, a DIY theatre project he co-founded in 2003. He is currently seeking a publisher for his novel Bakken, an anarchist crime drama about FBI entrapment and eco-terrorism in the North Dakota oil fields, as well as some shorter works.
As an abolitionist, he writes articles with the Fire Inside Collective, helps edit Perilous Chronicle, and has administered Lucasville Amnesty since its inception in 2011. He organizes with the survivors and allies of the 1993 Lucasville Uprising, as well as assisting currently incarcerated members of the Free Alabama Movement (FAM) and other prison rebel formations.
Ben is available for presentations or workshops on prisoner resistance, abolition, or creative writing. He also gives tarot readings. Contact him at insurgent.ben [at] gmail.com
Stories and Novels
NOVELS:
Bakken – an anarchist crime drama about FBI entrapment in North Dakotan frack country. Bakken examines the man-camp boom economy, desperate eco-warriors, nervous law enforcement, complicit liberals and the elusive native other. Multiple conflicting and overlapping perspectives crowd to tell an alternative history of almost present struggles and explore our role as witness to terrible histories. 47,000 words.
The Queen that has No Name – a sociological fantasy epic chock full of political allegory and unstable affinities. The Queensrealm is ruled by an aloof and invincible monarch. Some nations worship her as a god, while others study her capricious sovereignty, attempting to discern a jurisprudence and better obey. All tremble in her shadow, but there are regions of her territory she hasn’t visited for many decades. Resistant cultures developed among those who have never seen or feared The Queen’s shadow. These tiny pockets and nomadic tribes struggle against obedient nations for a life free of all authority.
When Ryder, a troubled youth unsatisfied with her tiny pocket, meets N’tahn, a boy left behind by his nomad tribe, they unlock a collaboration with the potential to not only threaten her followers, but to defy The Queen herself. Multi-volume series.
STORIES:
Five Instances of Trauma Rendered in the Absence of their Context – dystopian speculative short fiction that leaves out far more than it includes. Demmon and three comrades are tossed and mangled by a storm of global police-action, ecological collapse, and biopolitical crisis. 5,000 words.
uglyjuice – a brief prose-poem glimpse into survival in a supermax prison. 700 words.
Bureaucratic Utopianism is a White Supremacist Scheme for Offloading the Burdens of Armageddon onto the Shoulders of Races and Classed Others who It Deems Morally or Socially Deficient – a breathless monologue by an insufferable mansplaining scholar of “Apocalypse Studies” who earnestly believes human civilization can pass through the coming catastrophe intact. 10,000 words.
The Parable of the Arborists, or The Measures Taken: a Children’s Story for Anarchist Adults – reframing Bertolt Brecht’s call for militancy as a modern satirical fairy tale. A group of well-intentioned arborists fail to rescue the world tree from invasion by a suffocating vine. 1,500 words.
Abolition Scholarship
Forthcoming: ‘Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win’: U.S. Prisoners Collectively Resisting Against Systems of Death (co-authored with Dr Colleen Hackett)
2017: The Fire Inside(co-editor with Dr Colleen Hackett, The Fire Inside Collective).
2016: Abolition from the Inside Out: National Workstoppage in the US (co-presentation with Dr Colleen Hackett at the American Society of Criminology annual meeting, New Orleans, LA).
2016: Prison Slavery and Forced Labor: National Work Stoppage in the US (co-presentation with Dr Colleen Hackett at the International Conference on Penal Abolition annual meeting, Quito, Ecuador).
2016 Using an Anarchist Lens to Understand Prison Slavery and Resistance (co-presentation with Dr Colleen Hackett at the 1st annual Anarchism, Crime and Justice conference, Fort Lewis College, Durango, CO).
2013-14: Tour with The Great Incarcerator, Part 2: The Shadow of Lucasville (documentary film by D Jones, co-presented with Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Keith LaMar, Greg Curry and Jason Robb via telephone from Ohio State Penitentiary).
2013-14: Behind the Badge Tour (an abolitionist play written and performed by Turk, directed by Kate Pleuss, sometimes co-presented with Dr Colleen Hackett).
2013: An End to the “War on Drugs”? (co-presentation with Dr Colleen Hackett at the International Conference on Penal Abolition in Ottawa, Ontario).
2011: In the Belly Tour (An abolitionist play co-written and performed by Ben Turk, Kate Pleuss, and Weslie Coleman).
Insurgent Theatre
From 2003 to 2015, I ran with Insurgent Theatre, performing all original DIY plays, first in Milwaukee, then touring around the US and Canada. At the end of the run, Insurgent’s mission statement read: “Insurgent Theatre strives to connect performing arts with radical struggles, to make theatre that is relevant, engaging, challenging and useful for those who confront the US police state and global capitalist empire.”
The first five years Insurgent performed in non-traditional venues in Milwaukee doing full length original works, absurdist short play festivals, guerrilla street theatre stunts, and wild adrenaline-soaked experiments. We re-wrote Sartre, mashed up the Weather Underground and the Iraq war, we brought many people to the stage and the audience for the first time. For 4 years in a row we co-produced Play in a Day, which unlike your typical fun collection of short sketches, took the title seriously: we wrote, designed, built, costumed, rehearsed and performed full length plays in the completely inadequate span of 24 hours.
In 2008 Insurgent began touring, bringing four plays I wrote or co-wrote around the US and Canada. In 2011 these plays became fundraising and awareness-building tools for prison abolition projects, helping foreground prison rebellion in radical communities. A book collecting some of Insurgent’s work as well as essays and manifestos written over the years is available from Little Black Cart, or by contacting me at Insurgent.Ben@gmail.com.
Behind the Badge (August 2013)
What does it mean to be a compassionate, dedicated, humane police officer in the country with the world’s highest incarceration rate and a continuing tradition of racial injustice?
Insurgent Theatre brings audiences behind the badge of a neighborhood liaison officer, using stripped-down interactive theatre and a radical analysis to peer into the inner life of a man in blue*.
Written by Ben Turk, Directed by Kate Pleuss
Performed 57 times between August 2013 and June 2014 by Turk and one volunteer from each audience, with sometimes contributions from Firehawk OhYea!
In the Belly (February 2011) In the belly is where things digest, where they are broken down so their value can be extracted. This is where things are made to rot. If our society is a beast, its belly is the prison system. This work from Insurgent Theatre seeks to manifest imprisonment on stage, overlays it with critical analysis of the system, and follows up with in-depth discussion about abolishing prison in America.
Created in workshop by Weslie Coleman, Kate Pleuss, and Ben Turk, with assistance from Harmony Bench and Rebecca Riley.
Performed about 70 times between February 2011 and April 2012 by Coleman, Pleuss, and Turk.
Ulysses Crewmen(August 2009)
A militant dissenter abuses her hostage from the US delegation while faintly aware of the audience surrounding her. This claustrophobic scene creates a space for radical introspection, defiant theatre, and tactical conversations. With only a few props, two actors, one of whom is bound and gagged, and a serious commitment to DIY politics, Insurgent Theatre refutes ancient dogmas found in Homer’s Odyssey and examines the psychosexual underpinnings of empire and rebellion.
Written and Directed by Ben Turk.
Performed over 100 times between August 2009, and October 2010 by Kate Pleuss and Ben Turk.
Tour was documented exhaustively here.
Paint the Town (July 2008)
A militant fairytale about an inspired revolutionary, the perfect family who loves her, and the man who slaughters that family in a wave of brutal terrorism to set her free from the bondage of the establishment.
Written by Ben Turk
Directed by Tracy Doyle
Performed an uncounted number of times in 2008 and 2009.
This era of drama writing and performance deeply informs my writing techniques, relationship with audience, and organizing projects. As Bertolt Brecht advocated and Augusto Boal realized, I’ve found theatre to be primarily didactic and enriching for its performers.
“Freaks are revolutionaries and revolutionaries are freaks.”
– Weather Underground Organization, 1969
Miscellany
BOARD GAMES
Witch of the Wood
A semi-cooperative adventure survival boardgame for 4-6 players set in 1680s puritanical America. Each player represents a fervently religious family struggling to craft a brilliant New Eden out of the darkness. Survival requires cooperation, but control flows to the most reverent, moreover, there is an tempting evil in the wood. She lures the weak and desperate to sin, blasphemy and the gorgeous nihilism of self-destruction.
POEMS
Between 2015 and 2017 I started writing poetry, which I read at open mics and protests. I made a few into videos on YouTube, and compiled a never published collection.
2013-14: Tour with 
(August 2009)
Witch of the Wood