Deathbed Digest: Sept-Nov 2025
What? No free scary short story by a comedy writer today?
THE HORROR!
OR MORE SPECIFICALLY, THE LACK THEREOF!
Hello, subscribers, and welcome to the first edition of The Deathbed Digest, (or should we say “die-jest?”) a quarterly-ish update to:
a) Let you know how much we appreciate you ( a lot)
b) Give you a chance to catch up on stories you may have missed (we have nine, total)
c) Preview what’s coming next (more scary, funny, stories)
d) Tell you how you can best continue to support Deathbed (you're doing it)
So let’s get into it, weirdos!
Last thing first. How can you support Deathbed?
Unlike Seth, the methodical roommate driven mad by Snickers the Clown in our most recent story THE TELLTALE HONK from Gena Radcliffe, we’re not stressing out about the rent.
There may be cool "paid member only" perks to come, but the stories themselves? Read them!
Deathbed is free, and there are no plans to put stories behind paywalls.
These short stories, in addition to being scary, original, fun to read, and occasionally gross, serve a larger purpose. They're giving a platform for experienced comedy writers to build out their toolboxes and expand their resumes in a market where horror projects are increasingly put in the capable hands of comedians (see Zach Cregger, Jordan Peele.)
Deathbed also offers producers, publishers and broadcasters a peek into our little incubator for original horror-comedy concepts that may be adapted for stage, screen, audio, or other formats, none of which were created with AI or rely on existing IP. Are you a producer or creator with a question about adapting or expanding a Deathbed story? Get in touch!
If you like the work we're doing, the best way you can support it is by sharing the link to subscribe.
Since launching last fall, we’ve published a horror story from a comedy writer every week, quadrupling our subscriber base. If you got this in your inbox, you are part of an exclusive, independent, writer-created collective of horror-comedy experimentation.
THANK YOU!
In case you’ve missed any stories so far, we’ve published everything from rhyming couplets inspired by social terrors, (Kevin Maher’s The Monster Under My Bed) to a terrifying meditation on grief, family, and generational differences (Scott Jacobson’s Please Burn.) Some of our stories have darkly funny characters, like Stanley Patches, the talking Teddy Bear from Bob Powers’ I Once Performed Dark Magic at a Sleepover and Now I Have Trouble Expressing My Affection For Romantic Partners, or the unfortunate heiress Diane Peterson, from Ritch Duncan’s The Breakdown, who fails to rest in pieces, haunting her killer in unconventional ways.
CeCe Pleasants Adams extended the horror of toxic positivity at work into Giggles, the story of a nurse in clown makeup who loses herself to the monster within, and Dan McCoy took on the modern monster metaphor itself, with The Monster Hunter Changes His Mind, a metaphysical medieval tale seasoned with modern comedy and a classic twist. Dan also wrote the first story we published, Bad Seed, a creepy take on the Johnny Appleseed myth. Editor Ritch Duncan’s third piece for Deathbed, (If you count The Introduction as one, which we do) was The Tantrum, a twisty horror story from a child’s perspective, born from an attempt to create cinematic “jump scares” on the page. Did he succeed? Leave a comment and let him know!
Remember: The BEST way for us to shop these stories into new and wider distribution channels, reach more people, and get writers paid is to boost our subscription numbers. So forward this email to a friend, and encourage them to subscribe! Here's the catch: they get one email every Monday with a horror story written by a comedy writer in it. Or, I guess, one of whatever this message is.
But that's it. That's the whole catch.
So what's coming up for Deathbed? A lot!
We’ll be back next week with an original Christmas story from Kevin Maher about a girl with a demonic foot, along with a tale of alien abduction (from the alien’s perspective) by Jeffery Kaufman, and a charming (and gut churning) love story from Ben Zelevansky about art triumphing over commerce, with the help of a Japanese pull saw.
Also! More art from Munich Art Studio, who did the great drawings for this post as well as our "Skully" logo.
We have also been supported and boosted by shoutouts and encouragements from the following awesome outlets, who we thank from the bottom of our hearts:
The fantastic showbiz blog Travalanche
Will Hines’ terrific improv comedy newsletter Improv Nonsense
The fabulous film podcast The Flop House
The dynamite video variety show Kevin Geeks Out
The pop culture blog Non-Productive.Com
The wonderful horror movie podcast Kill By Kill
Please continue to shout us out in your newsletters, on your blogs, invite us on your podcasts, and tell your friends. Every subscriber we get is someone we can reach without depending on the fickle algorithms of social media. We’re also on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and even YouTube.
At the end of the day, we’re a bunch of comedy writers writing horror stories. C'mon. That's fun!
So Read our stories! Share the link to subscribe! Are you a comedy writer? Check out our submission guidelines!
We're happy to have you here. Our goal when we started this was to make it through Halloween with a new story every week. Mission accomplished. Our next goal is to just keep growing.
One day, we may even have stickers!
Who wants one?
