Western Writers’ Showdown
Ends in Arkansas
The board of the Springdale (Ark.) Public Library declined September 12 to remove the works of Western authors Jon Sharpe, Jake Logan, and Tabor Evans despite a local resident’s complaint that their writing includes “pornographic, sexual encounters.” Although trustees agreed to hear sexual-addiction counselor Mark Weaver speak to the issue, they denied him permission to read aloud from the passages he finds offensive.
“The first Playboy I ever read was destruction in my own life, and my wife has had to deal with it,” Weaver said at the meeting, according to the September 13 Springdale News of Northwest Arkansas. “These books point to an addictive nature. Jesus says that adultery is wrong.” Trustee Euva Phillips countered by comparing Weaver’s objection to Phillips’ having “just made the choice for me not to read” the library’s copies of Danielle Steele novels, which are considered too explicit by some. “How do we say as a library which books are OK and not OK to have?” Phillips asked rhetorically.
The authors whose works Weaver challenged are among some 48 in the library’s Western-authors collection.
Posted September 17, 2001.
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