His work includes the illustrated essay collections Philadelphia on the Fly: Tales of an Urban Angler (Frank Amato Publications, 2005) and Small Fry: The Lure of the Little (The Whitefish Press, 2009).
Swegman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and attended Penn State where, as an undergraduate, he wrote and edited for the university's newspaper, The Daily Collegian.
He settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, freelancing fiction, journalism, and poetry, much of which appeared in the Zine movement during the 1990s.
The alleged appearance of the northern snakehead (Channa argus) in Central Park's lakes in April–May 2013 brought renewed international attention to the problem of invasive species in urban waterways.
Swegman's angling writings were cited by The New York Times[3] and segments on The Today Show.