Courtesy Photograph / Writer’s Guild Basis (Photograph by Beowulf Sheehan)
Suzette Baker speaks on the Authors Guild Basis’s thirty second Annual Gala.
This text was initially printed by the Texas Observer, a nonprofit investigative information outlet. Join their weekly e-newsletter, or observe them on Fb and Twitter.
Suzette Baker, from unincorporated Kingsland, was feted not too long ago by the Authors Guild in New York Metropolis as a “Champion of Writers” — the first-ever recipient of a nationwide award established to honor librarians who struggle e-book bans.
In 2022, she was fired from her job as a Llano County librarian after resisting orders to ban books and protesting towards censorship. In response to Baker’s story, an area mother named Leila Leah Inexperienced and different library patrons filed a federal lawsuit, supported by the Writer’s Guild. In 2023, they received a courtroom order that pressured county officers to revive eight of the 17 titles that had been faraway from library cabinets.
“Baker’s courageous protection of her neighborhood’s proper to learn is a testomony to the important function librarians play in upholding free speech and artistic expression within the face of censorship,” stated Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest writers group.
Baker continues to struggle for freedom of expression and is pursuing her personal wrongful termination lawsuit towards the Llano County officers. Nonetheless, in some methods, Baker, a mom of 5 and grandmother of two, would quite nonetheless be working within the Kingsland Department Library, assembling quirky shows, recommending books, and serving to adults and youngsters entry the web. Being a small-town librarian was her dream job. The Observer spoke to her about books and censorship.
TO: The lawsuit you filed in 2024 tells how you bought fired. It began with one thing so easy: placing up a show in your department library. Do you know on the time the show may get you in bother?
No, that’s the humorous half! So we had a marquee, and I used to be all the time placing up humorous little indicators. That was only a fixed factor. And I put little quirky issues on the billboard exterior, and it introduced folks into the library. … And so after the Tennessee burning of the Harry Potter books by the minister in 2022 [which was live-streamed], I made a decision to place an indication on the marquee, which stated: “We put the Lit in literature,” a pun. After which, on the within, “Try our lit books” or one thing like that subsequent to a show of probably the most generally challenged books.
Among the books have been ones that you simply’d been ordered to take away from the gathering proper?
The books included some on a listing that Bonnie Wallace [a member of the Llano County library advisory board] had despatched us. I put that every one onto the show as a result of if individuals are telling you that you simply shouldn’t learn this, the very first thing you consider ought to be: “Nicely, why not? What’s their motivation behind this? And is it true?” And the whole lot on the record that [Wallace] despatched me as quote-unquote “pornographic” was not pornographic in in the least. It simply isn’t.
So I put it on there for folks to see, and I had despatched a screenshot to Amber Millum, who was the [Llano County system] library director and she or he despatched me a textual content again: “Hahahaha superior.”
After which the following day, Amber Millum known as me up. She stated, “You’ve obtained to take it down.”
So clearly somebody had known as her in between?
Oh, yeah. Any person yanked her chain and made her do it.
So I do know that earlier this yr you filed a wrongful termination lawsuit towards Llano County, saying you have been fired for preventing censorship. The county claims you have been fired for insubordination. Did you refuse to take down the show?
I didn’t refuse to take that one down. All I did was change the title … to one thing like “Smoking sizzling books” or one thing. And I had an image on it of Joseph Goebbels [Hitler’s propaganda minister] burning books in Berlin.
I altered what I known as the show, however I didn’t take the books off it.
It was on a crimson shelf that we put all these shows on. Easter books at Easter time and patriotic books for 4th of July, Memorial Day. It went by means of the seasons. Romances are up there for Valentine’s Day and mysteries possibly within the summertime. … So it, you recognize, it may pivot. So it was a repeatedly revolving show.
Did you place the Llano County proposed record of banned books on that show?
I didn’t have the record up there. The record was behind the desk. I had simply taken books off that record and put them up there.
A number of the so-called insubordination was issues like, my boss despatched us the [book ban] record, and I despatched her again a hyperlink to the American Library Affiliation ‘s Workplace of Mental Freedom [with information] on what censorship is and methods to struggle it.
What does getting this award imply to you? I imply, that is the Authors Guild and also you’re being feted at a gala in New York Metropolis. It’s an enormous deal!
It’s past something that I can think about. But it surely’s a double-edged sword. You realize, that is wonderful and phenomenal. And it’s one thing that I might by no means have even thought-about occurring in my lifetime. But it surely occurred due to a foul factor that occurred to me. So you recognize it’s type of good and dangerous.
I do know that plenty of the Texas librarians have actually tried exhausting to struggle towards censorship, however I imagine you’re the one one who has been fired over it, proper?
As of proper now, I’m the one one which’s been fired over it, however I’m type of the litmus take a look at for this group. How far they will push their native authorities. So it’s essential that we struggle again as exhausting as we will. … In the event that they get away with this, then they’re simply going to scrub home in libraries in Texas.
Have you ever gotten recognition out of your fellow librarians?
Oh, sure, after this occurred, we have been speculated to go to the Texas Library Affiliation convention as a library group, and so they pulled the plug on that for us. And so I made a decision that after I obtained fired, that I’m going to go anyway. So I went to the TLA not as a librarian, however simply as an individual. And after I walked right into a room all of them knew who I used to be, which nonetheless to this present day, it’s simply overwhelming, the quantity of help that I’ve obtained from these folks, my fellow librarians, it was simply wonderful.
I learn some unhappy information about your individual library in a latest Austin American-Statesman story. Kingsland is one in every of solely three county department libraries and its hours have gone down and so they haven’t changed you. Is that also the case?
Sure, it’s, sadly. They’ve reduce out two of the youngsters’s applications. It’s falling behind. [The Llano County library] misplaced its accreditation. It’s on probation … so you’ll be able to’t go within the library anymore and order a e-book from one other library. It’s simply. It’s unhappy.
It’s not open on weekends and it’s not open previous 5:30. So anyone who has a job can’t go. … I imply, they will sit exterior in 100-plus diploma climate and get on the free Wifi, however that’s it.
You advised me you’re working 45-50 hours every week at a ironmongery shop now to pay the payments. And also you’re nonetheless taking good care of your grownup disabled son. Is working at one other library simply not a chance?
There’s solely the Llano County public library. After which there’s the Burnet public library, which is within the county subsequent door. And so they’re not going to rent me. … I don’t wanna go away right here. However [I] may find yourself having to, as a result of I’m not going to discover a first rate job right here. However I’m attempting to struggle it out so long as I can.
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