Rolf Yngve grew up in a household of readers in Plymouth, Minnesota when cars had carburetors, kids had three pairs of shoes, and ice skates were entertaining for boys and girls. He attended the University of Minnesota sporadically from 1969 to 1971 where he met the poet John Berryman who was very polite when he told him to write something other than poems. After being drafted into the Army early in 1970, he managed to talk the Navy into taking him instead and went on active duty in 1971.

 

Thirty-five years later, he retired from the Navy after holding ranks from seamen to captain. Serving first as a quartermaster (an enlisted assistant to the ship's navigator), he became a surface warfare officer after commissioning through the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program (NESEP) at the University of Utah.  During his career, he taught navigation, studied at the German War College (Fürhungsakademie der Bundeswehr), commanded a destroyer (USS Oldendorf DD-972) served as the US Defense Attaché to Rome, served in the Pentagon, and deployed overseas with eleven different ships and staffs in support of naval operations on thirteen different occasions. He has subspecialties in anti-submarine warfare, operations analysis, and intelligence. After leaving the Navy, he worked as a defense consultant for SAIC and Booz Allen Hamilton to improve maritime security. He now writes full time and supports not-for-profit arts organizations. He has volunteered for a number of years at the Veteran's Village of San Diego where he helps veterans in recovery write their resumes.  



Rolf studied writing at the University of Utah, Old Dominion University and completed an MFA in fiction through the Warren Wilson MFA for Writers Program. He published short fiction in the 1970’s and 80’s in journals and little magazines including Quarterly West and The Greensboro Review. His work was anthologized in Best American Short Stories, 1979, Sudden Fiction and others. More recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Eclipse, Glimmer Train, The Chattahoochee Review, the War Literature and the Arts Journal, The Kenyon Review, The Common, Five Points, ZZYZVA, and others. A story was awarded the Indiana Review Fiction Prize for 2009; another earned a third in a Glimmer Train Family Matters contest and his story "Strands of a Necklace Down the Throat of the Mountain" was the first runner-up for the 2017 bosque journal fiction prize.  His novel, Any Watch They Keep, and his memoir, Sea of Ash, seek publication through representation by Henry Thayer at Brandt and Hochman Literary Agents, Inc. 

 

His debut story collection, Dog Watches, will be published by Saddle Road Press on 15 December 2018. 

 

Former Captain Yngve, now known as Rolf, lives in Coronado, California, across the highway from the Silver Strand Beach with his spouse, Sharon Shelton, Captain USN (ret) where they surf, sail, and try to do good.