1 week ago
Fuck Me Judith, with Claire Star Finch and Chloe Chignell
The recording of the reading with Claire Star Finch to celebrate the publication of their first novel Fuck Me Judith published by After 8, 2025. A groundbreaking, anachronistic experiment in literature informed by the counter traditions of New Narrative and queer writing. Claire Star will be joined in conversation by Chloe Chignell to talk queer literature, performative writing and the body as material.
About the book
In Claire Star Finch’s first novel, love and the void question each other in action.
Judith, an academic celebrity, and Wendy, a slightly less famous academic celebrity, fall in love. They break up. In her ensuing grief, Wendy finds herself in a pornographic, epistolary haze that slumps toward the narrative. Fueled by the only things that cut through the pain—sex and democratic theory—Wendy takes us along on her wild ride toward self-actualization.
Find the book here: https://rile.space/books/fuck-me-judith
About Claire Star Finch
Born in the United States and based in Paris, Star Finch writes and performs weird experimental pornography, at the intersection of theory and poetry. Their literary performances are regularly presented in art institutions in France and internationally (Palais de Tokyo Paris, ICA London, CAPC Bordeaux, Badischer Kunstverein Karlsruhe). Their ongoing research interests include vomit and dildos, exploring how these materials function as literary technologies. In 2024, They received a doctorate from l’Université Paris 8 in Gender Studies for their dissertation that traced the literary queerfeminsms of Kathy Acker, Hélène Cixous, Violette Leduc, and Audre Lorde. With the collective RER Q, they stage the performance of sexually explicit literary texts. They are the author of the novel Fuck Me Judith (After 8 Books, 2025) and the poetry collection Crache dans ma bouche puis crache dans mon autre bouche [Spit in my mouth then spit in my other mouth] (Les petits matins, 2024). Their other literary projects include Kathy Acker 1971-1975 (Éditions Ismael, 2019), and contributions to Lettres aux jeunes poétesses [Letters to young poets] (l’Arche, 2021) and Kathy Acker: Get Rid of Meaning (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Cologne, 2022). With sabrina soyer, they translated the poet Lisa Robertson into French, in Debbie: une épopée [Debbie: An Epic] (Joca Seria, 2021).
Credits
Introduction and interview by Chloe Chignell
This podcast was edited by Ros Del Olmo
The intro music was composed by Ive Vargas