Author Event! T. Alex Blum with John Gatins AN ACCIDENT OF BIRTH

When a stranger who turns out to be his niece receives an extra 23andMe test by mistake, it changes T. Alex Blum's life forever.

At the age of sixty, T. Alex Blum made a life-altering discovery: he was the eldest of four biological brothers he never knew existed. Born in 1955, Blum had always known he was adopted, yet the secrecy of the era kept every detail of his origins sealed. Without a court order, he spent decades without a single clue about where he came from—or why he had been given up.

Raised by a wealthy family on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Blum grew up surrounded by privilege but plagued by a deep sense of disconnection. He often felt out of place and emotionally unmoored, longing for a sense of belonging that never arrived. Having built a career helping others tell their stories - first for brands as a commercial producer and then as a feature film producer - Blum finally turns the camera on himself in An Accident of Birth.

More than a memoir of adoption and reunion, An Accident of Birth explores the universal emotional landscape shared by adoptees everywhere. With candid, affecting prose, Blum examines the pressures of “adoptee gratitude,” the quiet ache of alienation, and the lifelong search for identity, connection, and home.

T. Alex Blum has over 40 years of creative and production experience in marketing, advertising, and commercial and feature film production (Behind Enemy Lines, Fox 2001; Flight of the Phoenix, Fox 2004). He has been the recipient of multiple advertising industry awards for creativity and innovation as a manager of creative talent and production company owner. For the last 15+ years, he has been consulting with major brands on enterprise-level initiatives, solving creative and organizational problems for Fortune 500 companies. https://www.talexblum.com

John Gatins is an Academy Award–nominated screenwriter, producer, and director whose screenplay for Flight, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Denzel Washington, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. His extensive film credits include Coach Carter, Real Steel, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story (which he also directed), and Behind Enemy Lines, where he first collaborated with producer Alex Blum. Throughout his career, Gatins has been recognized for crafting compelling, character-driven stories, and he is delighted to reunite with his longtime friend and collaborator to discuss Blum's debut novel, An Accident of Birth.