At Brooklyn College, Turk was elected to Phi Beta Kappa (the oldest academic honor society in the United States) and Pi Delta Phi (the national French honor society).  From 1993 to 1998, he was the president of MIT’s Xi chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

In 1995, France’s Minister of Culture, Jacques Toubon, named Turk a chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters.

Turk’s literary prizes include awards from the Theatre Library Association for his book Child of Paradise (in 1990); from the Philadelphia Inquirer as a Best Book of the Year for Hollywood Diva (in 1998); and from the French Film Critics Association as the Year’s Best Book by a Foreign Author for Marcel Carné et l’âge d’or du cinéma français (in 2003).  Hollywood Diva was also a finalist for the 1999 Kurt Weill Foundation Book Prize.