Lucinda Hughes hopes people will be dying to read her new book.

The Mount Joy resident self-published "Death Wish - Death Is a Funny Thing" on Dec. 20, 2025. It is available on Amazon in hardback, paperback, and Kindle. Signed copies are for sale at Jack's Family Tavern, the Millersville restaurant she owns along with her husband, Chris.

The premise of the tome is simple. Hughes conducted Zoom interviews with well-known comedians such as Colin Quinn, David Attell, and Ron Bennington and asked them about the loss of loved ones.

"They're mainly from the New York area, because they are the ones I know and became friends with over the years," she said. "I just love comedy, and I love stand-up. I always have. I go to a lot of shows. After the shows, I tended to always say something to the comedians and got to meet them. I've been in hundreds of shows, and I've gotten to know them over the years, and just became friends. It's been pretty surreal getting to know some of these people and being able to call them if I want to, so it's pretty exciting."

Hughes was inspired by another comedian. "There was a bit that Louis C.K. did, and it was about his mother," she said. "His mother had died, and he described this van picking her body up because she had made the arrangements. He described it as just some van with an empty Gatorade bottle rolling around in the back. Comedians make fun of everything, and if you do it the right way, it's funny."

Quinn first gained national prominence as the host of the MTV game show "Remote Control," which debuted in 1987. "My husband knows this, but that's when I first fell in love with him," Hughes joked. "I've always loved him. He's great. Every comedian that I've met, they are the nicest people, very generous, very giving, very friendly."

Hughes informed Quinn of her book idea in 2024. "I said, 'Hey, I have this idea. What do you think?'" she said. "He's said, 'Oh, that's great.' And once he said that, I thought, 'OK, I'm going to do it.' So then I got in touch with all these comedians, and all of them said yes. I was really surprised. I took those interviews, and I intertwined my personal experiences with death and some weird facts from around the world."

Hughes noted that everyone reacts differently to death. "I think some people are pretty outrageous in the way they do it," she said. "Other people are on the opposite end. I got it in my head that I really would like to hear their answers to some of these questions. I wrote a list of questions, just around death and before and after, and how it's affected them."

Her eldest son, Christopher, passed away. Hughes' sister, Jennifer Miller, died in January 2025, four months after Hughes started writing "Death Wish - Death Is a Funny Thing." Hughes is also motivated by her children Zach and Lila. Lila is studying music and creative writing at Elizabethtown College.

Hughes wasn't always interested in becoming a writer. "I'd never done anything like it before," she said. "I went to Millersville University, and I did my papers at 3 o'clock in the morning and they were due at 6."

Now she acknowledges she's got the writing bug. Her next book is already in the planning stages. "The idea circles around a famous comedian and their assistant," said Hughes. "I have a couple notes written down, and I'm trying to set up an interview with an assistant of a famous comedian to just get some background and make sure I know exactly what they do."

In the meantime, Hughes wants "Death Wish - Death Is a Funny Thing" to provoke thought and stimulate dialogue.

"I hope people talk more about death," she said. "I know people do, but it's always such a taboo subject, and you don't want to hurt someone's feelings. I feel like this book takes this seriously, because there are some serious and emotional stories in here. It also makes light of it, because what can you do? If it opens up conversations with other people, that's awesome. That'd be great. The other thing is I love stand-up, and I hope people go to a stand-up show. I want to support these guys as much as I can because that's what has supported me through my life."