Your guide to the heart of Litchfield County:
Discover local stories, hidden gems, and must-know events.

Baking Breakfast Cookies. Cooking class for kids!
Instructor: Chef Charlene Dutka of Ciesco Catering
Event Location

Litchfield Community Center
421 Bantam Road
Litchfield, CT 06759
860-567-8302

Cooking with Kids: Baking Breakfast Cookies

Be ready to bundle up because our Holiday Lantern Tours are BACK this December! ⁠
⁠
Join us for a special lantern-lit tour of Litchfield’s Historic District and learn how early Litchfield residents celebrated the holidays. The tour starts at the Litchfield Historical Society where we will enjoy historically inspired cocktails and treats before grabbing lanterns and heading out to learn about past celebrations and winter pursuits in Litchfield. ⁠
⁠
Two dates to choose. Be sure to register soon, these tours sell out!⁠
⁠
Sunday, December 7th 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.⁠
Tuesday, December 16th 5:30 – 7:00 p.m.⁠
⁠
$15 for LHS Members, $20 for non-Members. Walking tours will last approximately 1 hour and cover 1 mile. Participants are encouraged to dress warmly.⁠
⁠

Calendar of Events

Joint the Joint Chiefs for their Annual Post-Thanksgiving Concert at The Center on Main in Falls Village. 2 long sets of music to help treat everyone’s Tryptophan overload.

The Center on Main
103 Main Street
Falls Village, CT 06031
https://www.thecenteronmain.org/events/joint-chiefs-concert

NWCT Arts Night out

Join the NWCT Arts Council for Arts Night Out! Art Supply Drive @ Village Center for the Arts!

Celebrate the season of giving by bringing new or gently used art supplies for our annual Art Supply Drive! Collected supplies will be donated to the Torrington Area Families for Autism (TAFA).

Network with local artists and arts and cultural professionals, spark collaborations, while you enjoy wine and light refreshments.

This event is 21+

When: Thursday, December 18, from 6 – 8 pm

Location: Village Center for the Arts, 12 Main Street, New Milford, 06776

Not sure what to donate?
Acrylic Paints
Watercolors
Pastel/Crayons
Canvas Boards (9×12 or 8×10)
Paint Markers/Alcohol Ink Markers
Water Color Paper (9×12 or 8×10)
Drawing Paper (9×12 or 8×10)

Refer to our helpful wish list below to see what items are in high demand with our friends at TAFA.

12 Main Street, New Milford, CT
https://www.villagecenterarts.org/eventscalendar

The Hickory Stick Bookshop welcomes artist Gerald Incandela, who will be here on Sunday, November 30th at 2:00 pm to sign copies of his book, “Gerald Incandela”.

ABOUT THE BOOK

“Gerald Incandela” offers an intimate look at the artist’s unique visual language, capturing the energy, immediacy, and spontaneity that define his work. Through a curated selection of photographic drawings and reflections, the book traces Incandela’s evolution as he experiments with form, gesture, and the boundaries of image-making.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Washington, CT artist and resident Gerald Incandela was born in Tunisia, and credits his love of art to his childhood, exploring the antique shops of the Tunis medina. He went on to study philosophy and art history in France. He’s recognized for his unique artistic process, which blends drawing, photography, and painting. In the darkroom, Incandela transforms the images captured with the lens of his camera by creating new compositions through the combination of multiple negatives in a panorama-like effect. While developing the large format, black and white prints, Incandela selectively applies developer and fixer on paper with a brush, as to reveal and animate selected elements of the captured image. This process allows him to create both warm and cool tones on the same unique master print. Transforming the chemistry of photography into a charcoal or ink-like media and using a drawing-like process, Incandela employs his own bold, meaningful gestures to portray and retrace his subjects, conveying his intuitive understanding and visual exploration of them.

Incandela’s photographic drawings are on display at the Wadsworth Atheneum through March 8, 2026, and May 10, 2026.

The Hickory Stick Bookshop
2 Green Hill Road
Washington Depot, CT
https://hickorystickbookshop.com/event/2025-11-30/book-signing-gerald-incandela

The Annual Christmas Bazaar at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Kent, CT – featuring antique Christmas Ornaments, Golden Treasures, Door Prizes, Baked Goods & Preserves, and our famous Café. All profits go to our Mission & Outreach efforts: local, regional & worldwide.

Roger B. White Parish Hall
1 North Main Street
Kent, CT 06757
https://standrewskentct.org

Join us for a multi faceted Exhibit , Book Signing , Tea Opening Party for Moon Zappa and Friends as she decsribes it in her own words :
Black Friday Madcap Art and Blindbox Wrap with Moon Unit Zappa & friends A whimsical West Cornwall eve to get holiday shopping done early – NOVEMBER 28th aka BLACK FRIDAY – from 4-6pm at the Wishhouse. Be moved and delighted by the works of some of Moon Unit Zappa’s favorite up-and-coming and established artists. Shop local and buy one-of-a-kinds instead of scrolling for BF “deals.” Or just show up and happystare – zero calories for eye candy. The Wishhouse November 28th Black Friday 4-6 pm Yay!
The Exhibit runs through the end of the year ! Open Th-Su 11-5

The Souterrain Gallery of The Wish House
413 Sharon Goshen Turnpike
West Cornwall CT
06796
http://www.souterraingallery.net

Step back in time to when legendary women conjurors captivated audiences. As part of a very intimate group, of no more than 25 patrons, acclaimed Magicienne Belinda Sinclair invites patrons to experience a time when famous female conjurors captivated their guests by performing impossible feats of magic. Drenched in fascinating history, the thrilling two hour journey into the past will come to life with Belinda re-creating astonishing displays of legerdemain.
​For adults 12 and up.

The Hughes Memorial Library
35 Lower River Road, West Cornwall CT.
Friday’s from 7:30-9:30, Saturday’s from 7-9 and Sundays 1:30-3:30..
*Reservations required * Tickets on Website
or call.. the number is on the website.

https://Conjurecamp.com

The Hickory Stick Bookshop is delighted to welcome author Gina Barreca, who will be here to discuss her new book “Gina School” with illustrator John Guillemette on Saturday, November 22th at 4:30 pm. The talk will be followed by a book signing.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Dr. Gina Barreca has made millions of readers laugh, think, and feel seen. Now, in “Gina School”, Gina Barreca opens the doors to her most personal, provocative, and laugh-out-loud collection yet. Whether you’re an anxious applicant, a lifelong learner, a book club rebel, or just someone looking for a little reassurance and a lot of sass—you belong here.

Beautifully illustrated and endlessly comforting, Gina School is the book we all need now. It offers open, early, and rolling admissions to perpetual latecomers, mature students, speed readers, book groups, gloriously erudite librarians, writers in need of prompts, and gift givers. Provocative, reassuring, and witty, Gina School is virtually impossible to resist as an emotional support book, a motivating tome, and a daily inspiration source.

Reassuring readers that they’re not alone, they’re not nuts, and that laughing together is as close as you can get to another person without hugging them, Gina School is a book you’ll return to with delight. You never have to graduate, and it pairs just as well with coffee and cake, cheese and fruit, espresso and champagne—and, if you wish, a cap and gown.

With eight million readers of her Psychology Today blog-column, Dr. Gina Barreca has been praised widely: People magazine called her “smart and funny.” Wally Lamb says, “Barreca’s prose, in equal measures, is hilarious and humane.” Ms. Magazine notes her “characteristic wit and wisdom.” The Chicago Tribune raves, “Barreca learned to do what any sassy smarty-pants would: challenge stale ideas and press buttons.” The L.A. Times applauds that “Barreca writes with intelligence and wit.” Booklist says she “gets it just right,” while Publishers Weekly praises her as “an unfailingly winning narrator” who provides readers with “humor along with serious insight.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gina Barreca’s classic on women’s humor, “They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted”, was followed by “Perfect Husbands (And Other Fairy Tales)”, “Sweet Revenge, Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in the Ivy League”, and “It’s Not That I’m Bitter, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World”. Author of eleven books, she’s also the editor of seventeen others, including “Don’t Tell Mama: The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing”, and the “Fast Women” series for Woodhall Press. Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of English Literature at the University of Connecticut, Gina has appeared on “American Masters,” “This American Life,” the TODAY show, CNN, the BBC, and Oprah. Barreca’s been published by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, Cosmopolitan, Forbes, The Chronicle of Higher Education and the Harvard Business Review. Her blog for Psychology Today has more than 8 million views. You can find her in the Library of Congress or the make-up aisle at Walgreens.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

John Guillemette is a writer and artist who enjoys hikes, houseplants, and disparaging mankind. He reads monks and drunks; if a monk wrote it, or a drunk wrote it, then he’s probably read it. His satire has appeared in Little Old Lady Comedy, and his stories have been published in The Wild Word, Book of Matches, and Long River Review, where he received the Edwin Way Teale Award for nature writing. He lives in New Haven, CT.

This event is free and open to the public. If you are unable to attend, you may reserve signed copies of “Gina School” by calling The Hickory Stick Bookshop at (860) 868 0525, or shop our website 24/7 at www.hickorystickbookshop.com.

Hickory Stick Bookshop
2 Green Hill Road
Washington Depot, CT
https://hickorystickbookshop.com/event/2025-11-22/author-talk-book-signing-gina-barreca