Carol Burnett among panelists for discussion about memoirs

For at least one night, Carol Burnett was a writer among writers.

The beloved entertainer was among three panelists Thursday for “An Evening of Memoir,” presented at the MacDowell artist colony’s intimate event space in Manhattan.

With some 50 people in attendance, many MacDowell officials and supporters, she was joined by the retired Princeton University historian Nell Painter and the author and literary event host Amanda Stern.

Their backgrounds differ greatly, but they identified with each other as memoir writers and through more common life experiences, whether conflicts with their parents or the struggles of writing itself.

The 86yearold Burnett’s presence was, understandably, a matter of interest in itself. MacDowell is a centuryold institution, with its colony based in Peterborough, N.H., — home at various times to artists ranging from James Baldwin to Leonard Bernstein.

Burnett has never been a MacDowell fellow, unlike Stern and Painter. But she is a longtime friend of the colony’s executive director, Philip Himberg, who served as moderator Thursday, and her fellow speakers showed obvious pleasure in being with her.

All three read from their work: Burnett from “One More Time” and “Carrie and Me”; Painter from “Old In Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over,” about her lateinlife decision to take up visual art; and Stern “Little Panic,” what she calls the autobiography of an emotion she knows too well.

Memoirs in themselves can be an education. Painter, whose books include “The History of White People” and “Creating Black Americans,” said she had to unlearn a lifetime of scholarly writing for “Old in Art School.” Stern said that only through conversations with her editor did she realize that much of her life had been a search for comfort and security.

Burnett said that her parents were alcoholics and that writing about them became a “catharsis,” a process of forgiveness.

Willy Sanjuan / Associated Press For at least one night, Carol Burnett was a writer among writers: The beloved entertainer was among three panelists Thursday for “An Evening of Memoir,” presented in Manhattan by the MacDowell artist colony.