Beyond Gangsta (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781484888292)

C. Flores was born on February 16, 1986 and raised in West Philadelphia. Since the early years of his childhood he was creative and loved writing; from poetry, raps, short stories and song writing. He was always great with words. C. Flores went to high school and that's when an intern from Penn University who he remembers as Ms. Andrea introduced him to creative writing. She saw the potential in him from his classwork in his English class. She asked him to just write a story of whatever he wanted. He went home with the okay to free write, his mind ran and he ended up writing a 10 page short story that blew her away with his creativity and imagination at the age of 15. The short story was an erotic story about a kid and a teacher who were intimate. This kid was a player and a ladies man. He was descriptive with sex scenes and used explicit language. Ms. Andrea fueled the fire and C. Flores began creating short stories on his own. Going to school and under the influence of the streets he began to sell drugs. He still wrote but it was raps instead of stories, his rap group G.H.I is where he continued his writing ability. At 19 years of age he was arrested by the FEDS and sentenced to 5 years for trafficking cocaine. It was his first time ever seeing a cell he was cut off from the world. He says that the abandonment and separation inspired him and also gave him time to get back to his gift and start writing. "When you doing years people forget about you, you know what they say out of sight, out of mind." C. Flores was released in 2010 with a G.E.D, some college courses and 9 books fully completed and ready to publish. He started off by attending classes at the Community College of Philadelphia while working at various jobs. After having two sons 11 months apart and three years after his release from prison reality started to set in. He realized that he was letting his talent go to waste. He searched the internet for how to start the process of getting his books published. C. Flores then started converting his handwritten books to the computer; this process alone took weeks and many sleepless nights. He juggled taking care of his youngest son during the day, who is 1, and trying to complete his project. His exact words were, "When you have a little cry baby trying to be held and needing to be changed and fed it slows you up. But I was focused on getting my work finished and out to the people."