After winning an Emmy, one of the protagonists of ‘The Librarians’ sits down with a WSLR reporter.
By Gretchen Cochran
Original Air Date: September 17 2026
Host: A documentary about embattled librarians that just won an Emmy Award. Our reporter Gretchen Cochran talked to Marie Masferrer, one of the main protagonists of The Librarians, who happens to live and work here.
Gretchen Cochran: On September 5, The Librarians won an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking. Marie Masferrer, a Bradenton resident who now works as school librarian in Hillsborough County, was there on that stage in Los Angeles with 12 other protagonists in the film.
The film traced the struggles of librarians over the last few years trying to defend their collections and preserve book access for all of us. Some had stood up to school boards defending books wrongly dubbed pornography; some have been facing job loss and threatened with death.
Kim Snyder, the movie’s director and producer, lavished praise on them for their heroism and courage.
[Triumphant music]
Kim Snyder: These are our courageous librarians.
[Applause]
KS: Five years ago, when we began this journey, we had no idea the extent to which our librarians were under attack nor the tremendous sacrifices they felt compelled to make. We are so proud to be standing here in solidarity with all of them and so many people across the country who are continuing to fight to fight for our First Amendment rights and our freedom to read.
[Applause]
GC: Masferrer got her school district’s permission to speak with WSLR but was not allowed to meet on library property or to divulge the names of the specific schools she works for.
So we squeezed into a small study room at the Manatee County Public Library in downtown Bradenton. The vibrant 56-year-old was not the picture of the passively enduring old lady book marm but rather the passionate fighter you’d want in your foxhole.
Masferrer has been a school librarian for 18 years, working in Florida school libraries for 10—some of them in Manatee County schools, but most of them in Hillsborough County just north of Manatee. But these last few years, in the time of Gov. Ron DeSantis and his “death of woke” and the Moms for Liberty campaigns, she’s been in the trenches. At one point, Masferrer was locked in her library for a full day for pushing back and not released until her union interceded. She left that school and now works happily in another.
She’s married to Marc Masferrer, a former editor of the Bradenton Herald who is now the author of a Substack called Bradenton Journal.
At the Emmy awards, each librarian standing on that stage carried a book that had been banned. Messerman held “Stamped: From the Beginning, Racism, Antiracism and You.” And “Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Pride Flag.”
Here’s Masferrer on the impact of such bans.
Marie Masferrer
Marie Masferrer: Books can save lives. We’ve heard from kids that they save lives.
GC: She’s referring to another banned book, Flamer, a semi-autobiographical graphic novel by Mike Curato. It is set in 1995, in a Boy Scouts’ summer camp.
As she talked about it, Masferrer teared up, wiping her eyes as she remembered a particular boy she watched in her library over several years.
MM: Flamer is a story of a young man who goes to scout camp in the summer and starts having dreams that he’s attracted to one of the boys at the camp. He’s been raised as an Evangelical Christian, and he says, “Oh, dear God, I’m going to Hell.” So he goes into the chapel at the scout camp, and I won’t tell you how it ends, but he contemplates—he takes out his scout knife. He’s going to kill himself. But, being a Christian coming from a scouting background—a child reading that book can find hope—can see themselves in that story. And it kills me to think of the stories that just disappeared when they are perfectly legal to stay on the shelf for a child who needs them.
In the United States of America, there’s a reason that the First Amendment is the first. It’s the most important of our freedoms: the freedom to say what we want, the freedom to watch what we want. Since the day that I saw that child at my school, “I will not back down,” I see their face every time that I get scared or worried. I see their face, and I keep going. And they transferred because of all this madness. They’re not in a public school anymore.
GC: According to a press release last week by free-speech advocacy group PEN America, 6,870 book bans were enacted during the 2024-25 school year across 23 states and 87 public school districts.
Just last week, the Florida Department of Education said 10 school boards last year had removed nearly 600 books from public schools, 200 more than the previous year. Most were from Clay and Escambia County in northeast Florida near Jacksonville.
Since The Librarians movie was released, it has been shown at festivals such as Sarasota’s, across the United States and even in Europe. The Librarians’ stars have been traveling with it. Masferrer went to Birmingham, Alabama to promote it. Snyder, the movie’s director, traveled to Poland, and Masferrer went to Italy. Book bans are showing up there, too, she said.
Marie Masferrer’s laptop
MM: What happens here in America starts to catch on overseas.
GC: Meanwhile, here in Florida, Tallahassee is not through. In this last session, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill that would revise the definition of “harmful to minors” as “anything depicting nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement.” School districts would not be able to consider potential literary, artistic, political or scientific value as a basis for retaining the material. The bill passed the House, but a similar bill did not get out of committee in the Senate. State government watchers predict the bill will return in the next session. Supporters from our area were Representatives James Buchanan, Bill Conerly, Fiona McFarland and Danny Nix.
MM: I don’t know a librarian that ever wanted to fight. We just wanted to serve our communities, serve our kids.
GC: The Librarians will be shown September 23 at Veterans Expressway AMC, in Tampa, highlighting Banned Books Week. It will also screen at the Bradenton AMC, second week in October, with a Q&A afterward. More information at thelibrariansfilm.com.
For WSLR, this is Gretchen Cochran.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6pm.