Brian Kenneth Swain

JIM_MCCARTHY@TimesRecord.Com 11/16/2007 Special to Living Q. Where did you get the idea for “World Hunger”? A. A tough question to answer succinctly, but one I get asked a lot. First, I am an engineer by trade (Columbia University Engineering School) and a business person as well (Wharton School MBA), so two of the essential ingredients have been in place for some time. Still, I am by no means a biotech engineer, so that’s where the need for extensive research came in. I have had a long interest in genetically modified crops for the better part of the last 20 years or so, reading articles off and on, a few books, that sort of thing. The opportunity to build a story around all of that arose back in ...

‘World Hunger’: A scary first novel JIM_MCCARTHY@TimesRecord.com 11/16/2007 Former Brunswick resident Brian Kenneth Swain imagines a ‘what if’ scenario involving genetically modified foods that is sure to haunt his readers Special to Living “World Hunger” is both the title and the context of Brian Kenneth Swain’s provocative and riveting first novel. Swain, who grew up in Brunswick and now lives in Houston, takes the controversial topic of genetically modified foods out of the realm of dry and frequently arcane scientific discussion and delivers a page-turning tale of corporate greed that propels scientific idealism into an unintended fiasco— unleashing into a world already beset by ...

MEDIA COVERAGE Click here to read the Q&A with the author from The Times Record. PRESS RELEASES What if you had the ability to feed the world’s hungry? But then something went terribly wrong… Brian Kenneth Swain, author of World Hunger (iUniverse, Inc., August 2007), takes you from the front page of today’s news into the corporate hallways of Vanguard Corporation, a fictitious agricultural company led by a greedy CEO with money to burn and backers to answer to. “Although it is possible to make money and do good things, almost everyone, at some point, finds themselves in a position of having to weigh the ethics of their actions against the need for a livelihood…. but at what cost? This is the focal point ...

Click Here to read the review of World Hunger by The Times Record “World Hunger is an amazing story of “what-if” as it pertains to genetically modified food. The author really takes you on a scary journey from seed development to the crop fields. Trust me, you’ll never look at an ant quite the same again! A terrific read!” “Like the film “28 Days Later,” this book terrifies with the thought that the opening chapters could be happening right now, somewhere in the world. Fast-paced and grounded in real science, Swain’s book is hard to put down, and you’ll want to give it a second read when you’re finished.” “World Hunger is an excellent thriller which is hard to ...

THEY SAY “YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT”… Using facts straight from today’s headlines, Brian Kenneth Swain, author of World Hunger, takes a fictional but frightening “what-if” look at the genetically modified foods currently being grown and consumed around the world. Looking through the eyes of the three major players: the corporate giants that control the purse strings, the scientists who are trying to play by the rules of ethics, and the environmentalists who vehemently oppose this exploitation of nature, Swain tells a gripping story of exploitation versus assistance. He says, “The concept behind World Hunger centers on the most controversial option for feeding the world’s hungry. Do those ...

My America is a poem that examines the full range of human experience and emotion in the context of everyday places and images. From urban to rural, from the coasts to the plains, the stories are of ordinary people, their loves, their fears, and their dreams. It is “Winesburg, Ohio,” “Leaves of Grass” and “On the Road”, rolled up in one audacious and unforgettable journey. The project came about in 2005. As Hurricane Rita approached Houston, Texas, residents were ordered to evacuate. I spent a week driving across the southeast, and, having no particular destination, took the opportunity to visit many small towns one would normally never encounter if one stuck to the major highways. From each town that I ...

Secret Places by Brian Kenneth Swain is worth a look.  This is a competent, well-balanced collection of free verse narrative poems that engage the reader in the author’s reflections on love, war, friendship, family, death and even Leonardo Da Vinci. “To An Old Friend Across the Ocean” is a fine example of the “epistolary” (letter) poem, written in this case to a dead friend. The poet discloses that he has written several letters to his friend in the past that have gone unanswered, until one day he finds an envelope from your address/ but with my name/ written in an unfamiliar hand. He discovers that the letter is from The one who lived with you./ The one who knew no English./ The one who tolerated/ my bad ...

I was raised in a Baptist church in southern Maine, about which upbringing several things are worth noting to help set the context for the unusual narrative that follows. First, and rather important societally, if not directly, to this story, is to understand that being a Baptist in the north bears strikingly little resemblance to being one in the south. These differences are manifest on multiple levels, most notable being the relative scale and grandeur of houses of worship in different areas of the country. At the risk of over-generalizing, suffice it to say that in the north the Protestant churches are the small ones and the Roman Catholic churches are the large ones. In the southeast, say from Texas eastward, precisely the opposite is ...

Here you will find details on Brian’s novels, poetry, essays and short fiction, as well as reviews, blogs on everything from genetic engineering to LNG tankers, and sneak previews of coming books and other publications. If you love reading, you’ve come to the right ...