The Writer and the Cottage

This Week in LIncolnville

'Tooley Cottage feels like it is a part of Liz Hand’s stories, an unnamed co-author'

Sun, 10/25/2026 - 5:08pm

Ed O’Brien

Liz Hand, at her table overlooking the pond. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Tooley Cottage as it looked in 1990. (Photo provided by Liz Hand)

Liz Hand, at her table overlooking the pond. (Photo by Ed O’Brien)

Tooley Cottage as it looked in 1990. (Photo provided by Liz Hand)

Every time I drive up to the little house right on the banks of Coleman Pond, it feels a bit like stepping into a different world. I first came here in the early 1990s, where I had been hired to watch two small children. I was confident enough in my babysitting skills at that point to handle little ones, three year old Callie, and one year old Tristan. The children of two authors, Elizabeth Hand and Richard Grant, who had arrived in Lincolnville a few years before to settle into an old fishing camp, Tooley Cottage.

The kids seem to like me well enough, Callie had even colored her lips blue just for me. Elizabeth, who I have always known as Liz, has become a dear friend. Not to mention one of my favorite authors. I remember arriving in Ireland to begin my semester abroad in 1995, and spending the first few days with a small group of other American students. We talked about our favorite authors, and one young woman said she absolutely loved a science fiction author named Elizabeth Hand. That cool lady I babysat for.

I arrived the other day to find Liz at the table in her kitchen, October sun flooding the room from over the pond, poring over a battered copy of Delorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, the page open to a largely empty portion of Northeastern Maine, doing research for her next book. The place names truly are pretty remarkable, and good fodder for a writer who has made her name writing fiction that can be best described as “weird”, something Liz embraces. Sci-fi, gothic horror, mysteries, historic fiction- it is difficult to place her in any other genre.

Tooley Cottage, where so many of her books have been written, while looking out over the pond and bog at the edge of Coleman, feels like it is a part of the stories, an unnamed co-author.

Liz told me how it was Richard who spotted the mimeographed flyer advertising the cottage for sale in Lincolnville on a telephone pole or bulletin board in Camden in early 1990. They had moved to a rented house in Rockport in 1988. Liz grew up in Northern Westchester county, New York, along the Connecticut border, and from an early age, on family trips to Vermont, Maine, and the Maritimes, felt a strong affinity to the wild places, wildlife, to small towns and community.

After spending young adulthood in Washington, D.C., she ended up in MidCoast Maine, a place that she always belonged.

By the time she saw the cabin that would become Tooley Cottage, Liz had made a collection of friends among that breed of highly educated and quirky craftspeople of our community, who tried to dissuade her from purchasing and moving into what was no more than a ramshackle fishing camp. The most reliable history suggests that it was originally a motel cabin which had been dragged to the bank of Coleman Pond in the 1950s. It had electricity but that was about it.

Liz is not a woman who shrinks away from a challenge, and in June of 1990, she moved into the place, and a few weeks later, gave birth to her daughter. She found her wild place, her community, her wildlife. She related that first winter, awakened by a porcupine gnawing at the wooden foundation, and going outside with a baseball bat at 3 a.m., yelling and banging on the side of the deck.

The life of a freelance author, even one who was quickly rising and winning awards in the literary world, is not especially lucrative, and Liz told me about how over the years she, with the help of the aforementioned craftspeople, made Tooley Cottage into a home. Liz’s close friend, the late Bruce Bouldry, had been trained at Rockport’s Apprentice Shop and told her that while Tooley may be a tiny house, if you think of it as a boat, it is incredibly spacious. Today, Bruce’s craftsmanship can be seen all over the place, in carvings throughout a home that, yeah, really has more in common with a boat.

By the late 1990s, her two children growing up and growing a little big for the small place, Liz bought her house in the middle of Lincolnville Center. That first night in the new place, with barely any furniture, Tristan and Callie happily bumped around the empty rooms wearing a couple refrigerator boxes, relishing the space. Tooley remained her escape, the quiet place to write. The kids grown with kids of their own, Liz spends much of her time there, a place of solitude, while loving and appreciating the community she gets at the place in the Center.

Tooley Cottage sits there on the shore of Coleman Pond, and it remains a magical place. In its bathroom, complete with chemical toilet, a gallery of outsider art Liz has thrifted over the years. Almost nothing in the place is new, she has been a regular at the Swap Shop at the Camden Transfer Station since the beginning. Faces — masks, hang everywhere, amongst old postcards and art given by friends. The laptop in front of the window, the perfect place to craft weird tales.

As Liz works on her next novel, set in the woods of Maine, her latest, the gothic romance Unspeakable Things is now in bookstores.

Halloween in the Center

Those incredibly cool folks at the Lincolnville Volunteer Fire Department are once again transforming the station into a spooky destination for Halloween evening.

From 3-7 p.m. October 31, the station at 470 Camden Road will host a haunted house, costume contest and plenty of candy. While there is some parking at the station, the LVFD will also be offering a shuttle in the form of a spooky school bus which will transport small ghouls and goblins and their parents/minders from LCS to the station. Please consider donating at one of the boots around town, deliver a check made out to the Lincolnville Fire Department to the station or Town Office, or Venmo to LFDmaine.

As usual, the Center will host trick or treaters. Dropping off a bag of treats at the Lincolnville Library would be welcome. I need to finalize my costume, as I prepare to cover the festivities for next week’s article.

Library Happenings

Needleworkers meet Tuesday from 3-5 p.m. Mah-jongg will be Wednesday from 5-7 p.m. and Friday from 12-2 p.m. The LCS afterschool second session of creating monster puppets will be Thursday afternoon. Stop by for tricks and treats Saturday from 4-6:30 p.m.

Okay, Lincolnville. The spooky season is upon us. Walk a quiet trail, listen to the leaves. Read something suitable to the season, any of Liz’s books, available at the Lincolnville Community Library, would be appropriate.

Drive extra careful next Saturday evening, and don’t let the young Lincolnville goblins scare you too much. Reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, October 26

Select Board, 6 p.m., Town Office

Joint Union 69 School Board Meeting, 6 p.m., Hope Elementary

Tuesday, October 27

Library open 3-6 p.m. 208 Main Street

AA Meeting 12:15 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Lakes and Ponds Committee, 7 p.m., Town Office

Wednesday, October 28

Library open 2-5

Planning Board, 6 p.m., Town Office