Jack Whyte was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, and educated in both England and France. In 1967 he pulled up stakes and moved to Canada, where he taught High School English for one year, before changing direction with his life and becoming an entertainer. For the next twenty years he worked as a professional actor, singer, and musician, in one form or another.
During the early 1970s, Jack toured Canada with a one man show, based around the life and times of Scotland's National Poet, Robert Burns. The presentation, designed for mass appeal, and researched, written, and directed by Whyte, helped to bring about widespread understanding of the mystique in Burn's work in a highly entertaining fashion. As a result of the success of the show, Jack Whyte found himself writing for the CBC, Canada's national tv network.
Subsequently, he was led to an advertising career, learning the trade as the Head Writer, and Creative Director of a number of advertising agencies. He eventually acted as the Corporate Communications Director for both public and private companies, where he learned the other side of the advertising business.
An early Classical education, combined with the indelible impressions left on him by back-to-back readings of Rosemary Sutcliff's novel, Sword at Sunset, spawned an interest in the history of Britain during the dark ages, as well as with the 460 year Roman occupation of Britain. Not to mention an overwhelming interest in Arthurian legend.
In 1978 he began to formulate his own theory as to a believable, and completely feasible explanation of the matter of "The Sword in the Stone", and commenced the creation of his own storyline around it. The result was a very realistic portrayal of what life in Britain during the times of Arthurian myth could have been like - minus the Fantasy aspects found in many other Arthurian works. His nine volume saga, impeccably researched, culminates in an Arthur so believable that, after reading of his life, convinces you he must have existed.
After finishing his Arthurian saga, he started work on a three part series on the Knights Templar, of which two are currently published. Each volume covers a different time period in the history of The Order. The first relates the events leading to the foundation of The Knights Templar. The second, the time period during which The Order had their disastrous confrontation with Saladin in the Holy Land. And the final volume will cover the events surrounding the beginning of the end of The Order on Friday, October 13, 1307 - the hunting down of its members, the arrests, the tortured false confessions, and the execution by fire of its leaders.
An entry to the blog on his official website, camulod.com, revealed that Jack has recently finished work on the writing of lyrics for a stage musical titled "Whitechapel: The Story of Jack the Ripper". This production will centre around the gruesome murders committed by Jack the Ripper during the late nineteenth century in London, England.
He also served as the official bard of The Calgary Highlanders, performing several tracks of poetry and song on a 1990 recording by the "Regimental Pipes and Drums of The Calgary Highlanders" entitled, Eighty Years of Glory: The Regimental Pipes, Drums, and Bard of The Calgary Highlanders.
Mr. Whyte is also a regular participant at the Surrey International Writers' Conference, held annually every Autumn, in Surrey, BC, Canada.
Jack announced at a public reading in his hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia, on Thursday, November 8, 2007, that he had signed a contract for a new series on the heroes of his Scottish homeland earlier that day. The proposed trilogy, with the working title of "The Guardians of Scotland", will be set in 14th century Scotland during the Scottish Wars of Independence. It will feature separate volumes covering the histories of James "The Black" Douglas, William Wallace, and Robert the Bruce.
He is set to begin work on the series after the completion of his Templar Knights Trilogy, the final volume of which will be released in August of 2009.