Charles Plymell was born in Holcomb, Finney County, Kansas in April 1935. His family later moved to Wichita, Kansas, and in 1955 Plymell enrolled at Wichita State University. He attended classes and worked as a printer there until 1960 without obtaining a degree. During his time at the university, Plymell edited and published two campus literary magazines, Poets' Corner and Mikrokosmos.

Plymell moved to San Francisco, California and continued publishing literary journals. He served as printer for the first issue of Zap Comix and in 1967 published his first book, Apocalypse Rose. In 1970 he was awarded a fellowship to the Hopkins Writing Seminars at John Hopkins University, where he received his MA.

Plymell published a novel, The Last of the Moccasins (1971, 1996), based on his interactions with and experience of the Beat Generation literary scene. He moved to New York and began Cherry Valley Editions, where he published poets and authors Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Janine Pommey Vega, among others.