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Image for event: Nature, Art, and Service as Medicine with author Julia Hotz

Nature, Art, and Service as Medicine with author Julia Hotz

A Friends Speaker Series Virtual Program

2026-01-20 14:00:00 2026-01-20 15:00:00 America/New_York Nature, Art, and Service as Medicine with author Julia Hotz Can swimming reduce depression? Can a fishing club help ADHD? How does nature, movement, and social connection cure what ails us? Author Julia Hotz explores "prescriptions" that can change our lives. Reading Public Library -

Tuesday, January 20
2:00pm - 3:00pm

Add to Calendar 2026-01-20 14:00:00 2026-01-20 15:00:00 America/New_York Nature, Art, and Service as Medicine with author Julia Hotz Can swimming reduce depression? Can a fishing club help ADHD? How does nature, movement, and social connection cure what ails us? Author Julia Hotz explores "prescriptions" that can change our lives. Reading Public Library -

Can swimming reduce depression? Can a fishing club help ADHD? How does nature, movement, and social connection cure what ails us? Author Julia Hotz explores "prescriptions" that can change our lives.

Be sure to jump start your new year with us as we chat virtually with journalist and author Julia Hotz about her book The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive Power of Movement, Nature, Art, Service, and Belonging.  

The Connection Cure combines diligent science reporting, moving patient success stories, and surprising self-discovery to help us discover the lasting and life-changing power of social prescribing. Traditionally, when we get sick, health care professionals ask, “What’s the matter with you?” But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking “What matters to you?” 

Register to attend and ask the presenter questions!

Science shows that social prescribing is effective for treating symptoms of the modern world’s most common ailments—depression, ADHD, addiction, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, dementia, diabetes, and loneliness. By integrating age-old medicines like art, nature, movement, and volunteer service into patient’s daily lives, social prescriptions are radically changing health and healthcare in more than thirty countries. Julia Hotz travels around the world to survey them —sea-swimming lessons for depression, “culture vitamins” for anxiety,  a fishing club for ADHD, a farm-based day-care for dementia, a phone-buddy program for social isolation, and many more.

As the first book on social prescribing, The Connection Cure empowers you to find, experience, and implement this revolutionary medicine in your own community. The success stories Julia finds bring a long-known theory to life: if we can change our environment, we can change our health. By reconnecting to what matters to us, we can all start to feel better.


About the Author:

Julia Hotz is a solutions focused journalist based in New York. Her stories have appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, The Boston Globe, Time, and more. She helps other journalists report on the big new ideas changing the world at the Solutions Journalism Network. The Connection Cure is her first book.

This program is brought to you through the generosity of the Friends of the Reading Public Library. Thank you, Friends!

Check out more upcoming virtual author talks and enjoy recordings from past events by exploring our Friends Speaker Series page.

Reading Public Library

rdg@noblenet.org
Phone: 781-944-0840

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Mon, Mar 02 9:00AM to 9:00PM
Tue, Mar 03 9:00AM to 9:00PM
Wed, Mar 04 9:00AM to 9:00PM
Thu, Mar 05 1:00PM to 9:00PM
Fri, Mar 06 9:00AM to 5:00PM
Sat, Mar 07 9:00AM to 5:00PM
Sun, Mar 08 1:00PM to 5:00PM


About the Library

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. To ask questions about accessibility or request accommodations, please contact the library at rdgadmin@noblenet.org.

If the Reading Public schools are closed due to snow, all Children's programming will be canceled.

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Children's Program Room

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Reading Public Library - Children's Program Room

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Children's Program Room

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Fri, Mar 20, 10:00am - 10:45am
Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)
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Sat, Mar 21, 9:30am - 11:00am
Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

Sat, Mar 21, 11:30am - 12:30pm
Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Studio

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Reading Public Library - Local History Room
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Reading Public Library - Children's Program Room

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Reading Public Library - Children's Program Room
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Reading Public Library - Studio
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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Conference Room

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Conference Room

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Reading Public Library - Children's Program Room

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Reading Public Library - Studio
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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)
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Reading Public Library - Community Room (A & B)

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Reading Public Library - Outdoor Patio
Registration opens Friday, March 20 2026 at 1:30pm