Joyce Meskis Pushing Books and Free Speech.

The article focuses on the owner of Denver's Tattered Cover Book Store Joyce Meskis's fight against censorship. Her Denver bookstore, the Tattered Cover, became a target for protest over a book signing by the aging rock star Ted Nugent. Nugent's book expounds his positive view of guns. Columbine High School, the site of the massacre perpetrated by two armed students last year, is located in a Denver suburb, so it was inevitable that Nugent would provoke controversy when he came to town. The parent of a Columbine student as well as others in the community called Meskis and urged her to cancel the signing. However she did not back off as she believed that censorship in any form, whether by individuals, special interest groups, or by government is seriously damaging to every citizen of this country. According to her, it is in the best interests of our democratic society that ideas of all kinds be allowed to flow freely to the individuals who seek them. For her, the defense of First Amendment rights is as much a part of bookselling as the books themselves. As a member of the board of directors of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE), Meskis had been involved in the successful defense of Kramerbooks, a Washington, D.C. bookstore for records of Monica Lewinksy's book purchases. Meskis has received strong support from national groups for her stand. Most booksellers have a strong commitment to protecting free speech, but few are as passionate as Meskis. Meskis' efforts were honored in 1995, when she was awarded the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.