If you’re looking for prose or poetry for oral interpretation, whether for class, competition, or just reading aloud, you are in the right place. Here are two posts listing stories and poems, from serious to humorous, listed by category and reading time. I hope you find something you like!

Fairy-Tale Themed Prose and Poetry for Forensics Competition or Reading Aloud

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All the pieces in Wolves and Witches are NCFL and NFL acceptable. Retold fairy tales include: Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Diamonds and Toads, the Twelve Dancing Princesses, the Little Mermaid, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, the Pied Piper of Hamelin. We read all our stories aloud before submitting them–they’re meant to be fun to read and easy on the tongue.

WOLVES AND WITCHES: PROSE AND POETRY PIECES FOR FORENSICS OR DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE

POETRY

PROSE

  • Bones in the Branches – 3rd person – 2 minutes
  • Lure – 1st person – mermaid – 2 minutes
  • The Instructions – 2nd person (advice) – 4 minutes
  • The Long Con – 1st person – Rumpelstiltskin – 4 minutes
  • The Peril of Stories – 1st person – witch – 4 minutes
  • The Best Boy, the Brightest Boy – 1st person – pied piper – 4 minutes
  • The Gold In the Straw – 2nd person – miller’s daughter – 6 minutes
  • A Mouth to Speak the Coming Home – 3rd person – 6 minutes
  • Questing for Princesses – 3rd person – 8 minutes
  • A Letter Concerning Shoes – 1st person – 12 Dancing Princesses’ cobbler – 10 minutes
  • Find all of Wolves and Witches here

More Fairy Tale Prose – NCFL ONLY (published in electronic editions only, not part of Wolves and Witches)

More Fairy Tale Poetry – NCFL ONLY (published in electronic editions only, not part of Wolves and Witches)

  • Song of Snow – 1st person, dark fantasy romance (Snow White retelling) – female and male narrators – 2 minutes – Read it at Enchanted Conversation
  • Crown of Bells – 1st person, fantasy romance (Beauty and the Beast retelling) – female narrator – 2 minutes – Read it at Mirror Dance

More Forensics Pieces: Prose and Poetry, Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror

Be aware of whether you’re choosing a piece for the National Forensics League (NFL), the National Catholic Forensics League (NCFL), or University Interscholastic League (UIL). The NCFL allows pieces that have only been published electronically—the NFL and the UIL do not. Times are approximate, based on the 1-minute-per-standard-page rule.

Prose – NFL, NCFL AND UIL ACCEPTABLE

  • The Roofnight – 3rd person, humorous fantasy (government official visits creepy town), male and female characters – 16 minutes – Buy it in print: Scarecrow
  • Escape from Ape City – 1st person, humorous horror (zombies), male narrator – 16 minutes – Read it here – Buy it in print: Zombie Kong
  • Good Neighbors – 3rd person, humorous dark fantasy (the Fae folk), male narrator  – 16 minutes – Buy it in print: Not Our Kind
  • The House, the Garden, and Occupants – 3rd person, quiet horror (ghosts), male and female characters – 14 minutes – Buy it in print: Triangulation: Morning After
  • Drift – 1st person, quiet horror (monsters), female narrator – 12 minutes – Read it at Unlikely Story – Buy it in print: Shock Totem #3
  • The Hauntings and the Moments – 3rd person, horror (haunted house), male and female characters – 10 minutes – Buy it in print: Unnerving #6
  • Two Things – 3rd person, humorous horror (zombies on a spaceship), male and female characters – 8 minutes – Read it here – Buy it in print: Zombonauts: Undead In the Universe
  • O How the Wet Folk Sing – 1st person, horror (Lovecraft underwater), male (frog) narrator – 7 minutes – Buy it in print: FISH
  • David is Six – 3rd person, fantasy (wish-granting fairy), male characters – 6 minutes – Buy it in print: Triangulation: End of the Rainbow
  • The Scry Mirror – 1st person, fantasy (witches), female characters – 6 minutes – Buy it in print: What Fates Impose
  • K Is for Kin – 3rd person, horror, female characters – 5 minutes – Buy it in print: E Is for Evil
  • Untouchable – 3rd person, fantasy (zombies), male and female characters – 4 minutes – Read it here – Buy it in print: Night Terrors II
  • Your Wicked Parts – 3rd person, horror (demon/psychopath), female characters – 4 minutes – Read it at Untied Shoelaces of the Mind – Buy it in print: Untied Shoelaces of the Mind Anthology 2011
  • The Hitchhikers – 1st person, horror, male and female characters – 4 minutes – Buy in in print: Phobos
  • Omen – 1st person, whimsical romantic horror, male and female characters – 4 minutes – Buy in in print: Shock Totem
  • Away and Below – 1st person, fantasy (goblins), female narrator – 3 minutes – Read it here – Buy it in print: Faed
  • My Rest a Stone – 1st person, horror (ghosts), female narrator – 3 minutes – Read it here – Buy it in print: Specter Spectacular
  • Xenofabulous – 1st person, humorous science fiction (aliens and fashion), gender-unspecified narrator – 3 minutes – Buy it in print: The Time It Happened

Prose – NCFL ONLY (published in electronic editions only)

  • On the Sabbath Day Be Ye Cleansed – 1st person, science fiction (off-planet colony), gender-unspecified narrator – 14 minutes – Read it at Redstone Science Fiction
  • Dear George, Love Margaret – 1st person epistolary, humorous steampunk romance, female narrator – 12 minutes – Read it at Sci-Fi Romance Quarterly
  • Shimmer – 1st person, science fiction (YA), female narrator – 10 minutes – Read it at Daily Science Fiction
  • Mr. Terwilliger Confesses – 1st person, humorous science fiction (time travel), male narrator – 9 minutes – Read it at UFOPub.com
  • Things I Wish I’d Known Before Drinking the Faerie Wine – 1st person, fantasy (faeries), gender-unspecified narrator – 4 minutes – Buy it: Penumbra: Sept 2013
  • Dolly at the End of the World – 3rd person, horror/sci fi (the apocolypse), male and female characters – 4 minutes – Read it at Daily Science Fiction
  • Remembrance in Stone – 3rd person, fantasy (magic), female characters – 4 minutes – Read it at Daily Science Fiction
  • Things That Matter – 1st person, science fiction (Christmas, the apocalypse), gender-unspecified narrator – 4 minutes – Read it here
  • In Memoriam – 3rd person, horror (vampire hunters), male characters – 3 minutes – Read it at Daily Science Fiction
  • Loving Armageddon – 3rd person, magical realism (relationships), male and female characters – 3 minutes – Read it at Crossed Genres
  • The Gate, My Beloved; My Story, Its Key – 1st person, fantasy (stories), female characters – 3 minutes – Read it at Daily Science Fiction
  • She Opened Her Arms – 3rd person, fantasy (Tam Lin and changelings), female speaking characters – 3 minutes – Read it at Fantastic Stories of the Imagination

Poetry – NFL, NCFL AND UIL ACCEPTABLE

Poetry – NCFL ONLY (published in electronic editions only)

  • Song of Snow – 1st person, dark fantasy romance (Snow White retelling) – female and male narrators – 2 minutes – Read it at Enchanted Conversation
  • Crown of Bells – 1st person, fantasy romance (Beauty and the Beast retelling) – female narrator – 2 minutes – Read it at Mirror Dance
  • A Warning – 2nd person, fantasy horror – gender-unspecified narrator – 1 minute – Read it at Grievous Angel
  • The Unicorn – 2nd person, magical realism – gender-unspecified narrator – 1 minute – Read it at Kaleidotrope

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Craving something longer? The Lair of the Twelve Princesses is a 9000-word sword-and-sorcery novelette, retelling the tale of the twelve dancing princesses featuring a soldier, her genie, and a castle full of treachery, available now at Smashwords or Amazon.