Former AFL player to run on

AFTER trading the footy for a pen, Brandon Jack is excited to be a part of next month’s Bendigo Writers’ Festival.

Jack released his first book 28 last year, a memoir about his life growing up as the son of rugby league footballer Garry Jack and playing 28 games of AFL football for the Sydney Swans over four years before being delisted.

The book explores Jack’s desire to play professional sport and his discovery that his dream wasn’t meant to be.

“It’s a book about my relationship with football, and the role football plays in my life is something that everyone has with something different,” he said.

“It resonates with people who never made it to the AFL in some sense because there’s a wanting of something more you don’t achieve; I think that’s common.”

Jack will appear as part of three panels, touching on themes of discipline, failure, masculinity, and emotion.

“I’m really excited about those three panels, even the names are every enticing and they’re things I’d go along to if I was going for my own interests,” he said.

“I’ve talked about these things before but what I find is I’m still learning in a lot of ways, and I don’t want to come across like I have everything figured out because I’m only 27.

“[I’m] somebody who doesn’t have the answers but is searching for them, and I feel there’s a rawness to that that people respond to.”

After the success of his memoir, Jack said he is keen to keep writing, and will hopefully have a fiction book releasing later this year.

You can catch him on all three days of the writers’ festival, from Friday, 13 May to Sunday, 15 May.

For tickets head to bendigowritersfestival.com.au.