A celebration of songwriter, composer, bandleader, record label founder, Chris Rael’s first book of short stories Guilt Sport.

Come see what these artists and musicians have to say about it in new art, song and snacks!

With:
Penny Arcade
Lisa Barnstone
Patrick Brennan
Rima Fand
NO DISCIPLINE (Ed and Susan)
Charlie Nieland
Chris Rael
Don Rauf
Anni Rossi
Patricia Santos
Henry Tenney
Alejandro Vargas (Billy Plastered)
and others!

Guilt Sport is the first collection of short stories by writer/musician Chris Rael, visionary of New York City world pop orchestra Church of Betty. The consummate lyricist/poet tackles the short-story format with anecdotal tales grounded in his long, strange voyages around the sun. Settings and premises emerging from the author’s life are embellished into fictional litanies of whimsy, insight and regret.

Nine stories tackle the commitment of parenthood, bullying and racism in the ’60s, cultural identity and adoption, discomfiting nuances of urban gentrification, a regrettable walkabout ending in darkness, corporate intrusion into employees’ lives, America’s private prison industry, Latino drug culture in the American West, and a self-proclamation of spiritual chaos.

Composer Chris Rael loves to turn short story collections into song cycles. In 2011 he won the New York International Fringe Festival’s composition award for Araby, which retold the stories of James Joyce’s Dubliners in one song per story. His group Church of Betty is currently recording his latest song cycle: Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, the short stories of Richard Yates, to be released in spring 2026. This penchant for transforming literature into songs makes him a natural devotee of the Bushwick Book Club.