09/15/2026
Some of the boldest things we can do are simply to stand up and say: no.
As we approach Banned Books Week, I’ve been thinking about the people who have spent their lives defending something that can feel deceptively simple: our right to read.
One of those people was Joyce Meskis.
Meskis was the longtime owner of Denver’s Tattered Cover Book Store and a formidable advocate for free expression. In 1991, while serving as president of the American Booksellers Association, she told booksellers:
“We booksellers are gatekeepers of the expression of ideas.”
She went on to describe booksellers’ responsibility to protect the First Amendment and to provide books of all kinds—including books with which we might personally disagree, find distasteful, or even abhor. Her position was remarkably clear: our personal agreement with an idea should never be the measure of whether someone else gets to encounter it.
Meskis also took that belief from principle to action.
In 2000, police sought the Tattered Cover’s customer purchase records while investigating a suspected drug operation. Meskis refused to simply hand over information about what a customer had purchased. She fought the request in court because she believed that knowing who buys a particular book can have a chilling effect on what people feel safe reading.
In 2002, the Colorado Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of the Tattered Cover, holding that the First Amendment and Colorado Constitution protect an individual’s right to purchase books anonymously and free from unwarranted government interference. The court recognized something fundamental: people should be able to explore ideas without fearing that the government is keeping a list of what they read.
That case matters to me deeply—not only because of what Joyce Meskis fought for, but because I had the extraordinary privilege of hearing this story directly from her and learning from her.
After receiving my bachelor’s degree, I attended the Denver Publishing Institute at the University of Denver. Leadership of the program was transitioning from the late, great Elizabeth Geiser, who founded the Institute in 1976, to the late, great Joyce Meskis.
They were both inspiring, educated, passionate women who led by example. They shared the power of information. They believed in informed minds.
Twenty years later, the lessons shared during that summer are still at the forefront of the decisions I make in my publishing career, in the way I share my love of reading with others, and in the way I’ve built this joyful book boutique that I am so incredibly passionate about.
Because the love of reading opens doors.
Truly.
Throughout my career, books have allowed me to travel to states and countries I might never have visited otherwise. They empowered me to speak with and work alongside Nobel laureates. They allowed me to be at the forefront of research in engineering, the life sciences, transportation, and technology at pivotal moments in each of those industries.
During the Ebola outbreak, I helped curate a list of technical resources that were made freely available to researchers working to advance the science.
At a conference, I had the opportunity to be a passenger in an automated vehicle that was driven using a gaming controller—yes, a video game controller—and saw firsthand where the future of transportation was heading.
And now, working in the technology space, I continue to learn about security, automation, and the ways information shapes the world around us.
These experiences that I’ve had the profound privilege of having have only happened because of books.
And it all began when I was young.
As a child, I read incessantly. If a book wasn’t in my hands, I was reading the cereal box, billboards, T-shirts walking by, or any other word my mind could land on. I remember my elementary school librarian asking me to read a paragraph from a book before I checked it out of the library because she thought it was too advanced for me. After two sentences, she told me to stop. Then for the next few years, I was able to check out any book I wanted to from that library and she let me exceed the weekly check out limits because she saw the love of reading that I had and wanted to foster it.
Support of that indelible curiosity I had inside of me changed me.
Reading taught me to understand perspectives far different from my own. It allowed me to explore places I had never seen. It taught me how to seek knowledge rather than fear what I didn’t understand.
And when I encountered differences in real life, I tried to approach them the same way I had approached them in stories: with curiosity.
When I traveled somewhere new, I wanted to experience the local food, customs, and culture. I wanted to learn and explore—with my own eyes, taste buds, feet, and mind.
That, to me, is one of the great gifts of reading.
It doesn't require us to agree.
It asks us to consider.
And that is why access to books matters.
Advocates for access to the written word, defenders of our freedom to read, and people willing to protect individual privacy are essential to an informed society.
Joyce Meskis was one of those people who understood that defending intellectual freedom sometimes means taking a bold stand—even when it would be easier not to.
And that is one of the many reasons we celebrate Banned Books Week.
Not because everyone should read every book.
Not because every book is right for every reader.
But because we should be able to choose for ourselves.
We can decide what belongs on our own bookshelves.
We can decide what we want our children to read.
We can disagree passionately with an author, an idea, or a story.
And we can still believe that another person has the right to read it.
Because an informed mind isn't built by protecting it from every idea we dislike.
It is built by giving it the freedom—and the tools—to encounter ideas, ask questions, think critically, seek knowledge, and decide for itself.
That is the kind of bold action worth celebrating.
And that is the kind of legacy Joyce Meskis left behind.
📚 Read boldly. Think freely. Stay curious.
