Gardens are places of beauty, escape, and great inspiration. For many of our guests, Longwood is also the setting for meaningful moments that linger long after a visit ends.
During this immersive writing class, enhanced with simple floral arranging, join Longwood Associate Director of Digital Marketing Jen Fazekas and novelist and essayist Margo Rabb in experiencing the magic of Longwood after-hours—when you’ll have the Gardens all to yourself to invite deeper reflection and creativity.
Read short poems and prose about gardens, memory, and nature; write your own work; and discuss with others how memories and experiences in gardens enhance our creativity, help us access new ideas, foster connections with others, and add meaning to our lives. Using what’s growing at Longwood, engage in another form of creativity by creating small, simple botanical arrangements to take home as a memento of your evening, no previous experience required.
Location
The Grove Studio 108, Throughout the Gardens
The class take place outdoors in the Gardens and will move indoors in the event of heavy rain. Please dress for the weather, wear comfortable walking shoes, and bring a notebook and pen/pencil.
Instructor
Margo Rabb and Jen Fazekas
Margo Rabb is the author of the novels Lucy Clark Will Not Apologize, Kissing in America, and Cures for Heartbreak, all published by HarperCollins. Rabb’s essays, journalism, book reviews, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, The Washington Post, Slate, and Marie Claire, and have been broadcast on NPR. She received the grand prize in the Zoetrope short story contest, first prize in The Atlantic fiction contest, first prize in the American Fiction contest, and a PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award. Rabb is an affiliated researcher at Winterthur and is working on a new book about the Philadelphia region’s public gardens. Visit her online at www.margorabb.com.
Jen Fazekas is the Associate Director of Digital Marketing at Longwood Gardens, where she has spent many years wandering its paths, uncovering its history, and getting to know the people who have shaped the Gardens. Along the way, she has created more than a few core memories in the Gardens.
Through the website and social media, she interprets the history and beauty of Longwood for its fans and guests. A graduate of Longwood’s Certificate of Merit in Floral Design program, Fazekas loves how floral arranging teaches you to notice nature differently. She believes gardens are powerful places for reflection and storytelling and looks forward to helping others discover their own stories among the blooms.
