Calvin Kentfield was born in 1924 in Keokuk, Iowa. Brought up near the Mississippi River, he developed a feeling for "going somewhere else" early in life. He attended the University of Iowa, but interrupted his studies to ship out as ordinary seaman and able seaman on freighters and tugs. He wrote stories and earned enough money to travel for a year in Europe. In 1948 he returned to the University of Iowa and earned a B.A. His first novel, The Alchemist's Voyage, appeared in 1955, The Angel and the Sailor in 1957, All Men Are Mariners in 1962, and The Great Wandering Goony Bird in 1963, among others. As well as writing novels and short stories, he frequently wrote essays for Holiday, the New Yorker, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Kentfield died September 4, 1975.