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Gina Barreca, professor of English, is most recently the author of It's Not That I'm Bitter: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World (St. Martin's, 2009). Her earlier works include They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted (Penguin); Perfect Husbands (and Other Fairy Tales)(Crown); Sweet Revenge: The Wicked Delights of Getting Even (Crown); Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Co--education in the Ivy League (UPNE); Untamed and Unabashed: Essays on Women and Humor in British Literature (Wayne State U.P.); Too Much of a Good Thing is Wonderful (UPNE); The ABC of Vice: An Insatiable Women’s Guide (with cartoonist Nicole Hollander)(UPNE); and I’m With Stupid: One Man, One Woman, and 10,000 Years of Misunderstanding Between the Sexes Cleared Right Up (co-authored with Gene Weingarten)(Simon and Schuster). Her works have been translated into Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, German, Spanish, and Japanese.
Gina also edited The Penguin Book of Women’s Humor, The Signet Book of American Humor, Don’t Tell Mama: The Penguin Book of Italian American Writing (named a “best book” of 2002 by NPR), and A Sit-Down With The Sopranos: Watching Italian American Culture on TV, and six other collections. She is founding editor and current co-editor of the scholarly journal LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, now in its twentieth year, published quarterly by Routledge. In 1998, Barreca received UConn’s “Excellence in Teaching” Award. She writes three times a week for the “Brainstorm” section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, blogs twice weekly for Psychology Today, and has a Sunday op-ed column in The Hartford Courant. Gina has appeared on dozens of television programs including 20/20, 48 Hours, The Today Show, and Oprah. The University Press of New England will publish her next book, an edited collected titled Make Mine a Double, in 2010.
Gina is a proud member of the
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Gina's New Book |
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered The World |
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Gina Reviews Books for WFSB Better Book Club |
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Check out Gina's newest collaboration with Gene Weingarten in The Washington Post. |
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Check back often to read Gina's latest colaboration with Laurence Cohen in The Hartford Courant. |
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Catch Gina's Blogs! |
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Read Gina's latest contribution to Psychology Today's Blog. |
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Gina is now contributing to The Chronicle of Higher
Education's Brainstorm blog. |
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As Gina was saying... the Dr. Phil Show, Wednesday, October 28th |
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Gina discusses It's Not That I'm Bitter The Faith Middleton Show WNPR Radio 90.5 FM Aired: May 11, 2009 |
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Gina talks to Dave The Dave Elliot Show WGUF 98.9 FM Naples, Florida |
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 Louise Crawford loves IT'S NOT THAT I'M BITTER! Smartmom says "In her sharp essays, she shows that maybe the grass is green enough no matter what choice you make because it’s how you think about things and laugh about them that matters." |
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Advance Reviews! |
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Ms. Magazine praises IT’S NOT THAT I’M BITTER in the Spring Issue: “ University of Connecticut English Professor Barreca offers feminism for the everywoman in these humorous essays. Expect poignant insights tucked between the laugh lines.” Publishers Weekly - ReviewFans of Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman will find humor along with serious insights about women and aging in Barreca's latest challenge to women to “stop obsessing over hymens, husbands, and hangnails and once again direct our attention outward to the larger issues of... the creation of genuinely significant opportunities for women in all workplaces.” But Barreca (Perfect Husbands & Other Fairy Tales) is more about laughs than lecturing, as she addresses the mysteries of finding the perfect bra, the indignities of bathing suit shopping at TJ Maxx, her relationship with her hair and the “Fifty-two Things I Learned by Fifty-one.” Along the way, she points out what she considers to be the insipid concerns of holiday preparations or what exactly women may consider to be a waste of time (“Why, oh why, didn't I organize my closet according to color and texture of garment?”). Between the snappy observations, Barreca takes an opportunity to liken the progression of contemporary feminist thought to a car accident—“it's not so much that we're in a backlash as we're in a whiplash.” (May) Booklist - ReviewWhile some may debate whether Barreca’s collection of short essays are painfully funny or humorously painful, many will agree these eminently readable pieces will have people laughing out loud, then sighing thoughtfully. Her observations as a 50-ish woman focus on life’s sexual inequities: “If women had tufts growing from our noses and ears, men would bring exorcists to the house. . . . Professionals to drive the evil spirits from our bodies.” And on the subject of age: “Once we hit forty, women have only about four taste buds left: one for vodka, one for wine, one for cheese, and one for chocolate.” Using the first-person plural, she chronicles all-too-common collective foolishness: “Almost no woman would treat any of her acquaintances as poorly as she treats herself.” Many readers, especially women, will enjoy, discuss, and reread this quick, breezy work of commentary, a book that stirs up dust long after its covers are closed. — Whitney Scott |
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Browse Gina's Books
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Education World archive
National columnist Regina Barreca brings her
timely,
insightful humor to Education World.
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| To see the way wit functions for all of us--men and women alike--is to see a map of our culture: to focus on things we've seen but not necessarily processed or analyzed; explaining what we've sensed but not yet bothered to define. Humor may have been ignored or challenged, but it has always been a secretly potent, delightfully dangerous, wonderfully seductive and, most importantly, powerful way to make a statement, to tell our stories, to make sure everyone's voice is heard. ~ Gina Barreca, Who's Laughing Now? |
Another of Gina's fabulous essays appears in the Winter 2009 edition of Check this out! |
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by Pulitzer prize-winning journalist
Gene Weingarten and Gina Barreca One man. One woman. 10,000 years of misunderstanding between the sexes cleared right up. Purchase at Amazon.com. |