"Don't let anyone deter you from achieving your goals" advises Westbury resident and writer Keith McNair. These words of wisdom have helped McNair to continue to pursue his dream of becoming a famous author and poet. With three novels published and a line of personalized greeting cards, McNair is currently working overtime to make his dream come true.

McNair has been living in Westbury with his family for over 15 years and has enjoyed all that the village has to offer. "Westbury is a nice and quiet town and we like it here," he said. "We shop at the stores and eat at the restaurants here and it's been great living here."

Living in the suburbs has helped McNair create his stories because he writes them during his commute to and from his job in New York City. "All of my books have been written on the train or subway," said McNair, who works as an analyst for the New York Stock Exchange. He believes that writing is a stress reliever from his busy occupation. "Writing is my relief and it's my therapy," McNair said. "Everyone has a story to tell and through my books I tell a story."

McNair's passion for writing goes back over 15 years and is what keeps him motivated to write a variety of fictional stories and poems. The dedication he has to both literary genres is what he hopes will help lead him to the top. McNair started his writing career when he developed a love for writing poetry. "The writing has always been in me, it just took something to bring it out. Poetry did it for me really," he said. "Writing love poetry and relationship poetry really gave me my start in writing." McNair then started writing fictional stories, which he said became another way for him to express his thoughts and use his creativity.

McNair's literary influences range from Maya Angelou to Stephen King. When dealing with poetry, McNair said that he enjoys reading anyone who has a positive message and especially anyone that tries to get a positive message to the youth. Legendary American poets like Langston Hughes and Robert Frost are ones that McNair reads for the positive messages in their works. McNair believes that his success is also due to his ability to talk to people to learn helpful tips about getting his name known.

"I spoke to anyone and everyone I could possibly speak to because you never know where you are going to get positive information from," McNair said. This comment is also the advice that McNair gives to other aspiring authors because his self-promotion skills has helped him publish three novels.

His first novel, Split Decisions, was published in 1999 by Word For Word Publishing Company. This debut novel was a psychological thriller that gave McNair a step into the professional writing industry. "I started out with a small publishing house to get my foot in the door. I tried to find out the ins and outs of the book industry," McNair said, adding, "Split Decisions was pretty much a test run."

In 2004, McNair then went on to publish his second novel Fragmented Truths and his latest novel, Dancing in the Light, was published last year. Both novels were published by Xlibris Corporation, which has currently made McNair's books available for purchase on over 400,000 websites including amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, borders.com and eBay.com.

Dancing in the Light is a story about a young woman who struggles with dealing and living with ovarian cancer. "It's a love story so it's about a young attorney connecting with her battle with the disease and finding her emotional self," McNair said. The author included the disease in his story to bring more of an awareness about it in the African-American community. "Ovarian cancer is not spoken about so much in the black community. It's really hush-hush and that's why I included it my book," he said. "By no means do I throw a lot of medical terms in there. The disease is just one slice of the book."

Dancing in the Light represents McNair's progression as a writer because it is a love story whereas his previous two novels were mysteries. "I didn't want to be looked at as only a mystery writer. I feel that if you're a writer you should be able to write about any subject," he said. He also tries to show this type of versatility in the subjects of his stories by making them applicable to people of all ages. "I write for anyone that wants to read a good story. With Dancing in the Light, anyone can read it and get something out of it," he said. "It's an uplifting story and it's for any age group."

Although success may be around the corner, McNair is not hesitant to describe the downside of the publishing industry. "The rejection is the worst part of the industry. Writers find that they send copies of their manuscript and everyone has an opinion of their work and that can become discouraging," he said. Nevertheless, McNair keeps an optimistic attitude because he said that his love for writing encourages him to keep moving forward. "The main thing is that I stick with it. Success isn't going to come over night and I have to pay my dues. That's pretty much how I handle the rejection," he said. McNair is currently working on his fourth novel called Dust to Dust, which he plans to have finished by the end of this year.

Being a loving husband to his wife, Marcia, and a positive role model for his children, Blaise and Leandra, are also a part of McNair's top priorities. "Being a strong father and husband is an important part of being a strong black family. Sometimes society only focuses on the negative and I try to bring the positive side to the forefront," McNair said, adding that he always tries to keep his family involved with his writing career. The cover of his latest novel includes a silhouette of his daughter Leandra dancing. "She simply loved the cover," he said.

McNair's efforts to include his family in his literary career are also shown through the title of his line of greeting cards, which he named Blaisandra by combining his children's names together. Blaisandra Cards represents McNair taking his poetry to the next level. "If you tell me that you want a specific type of card for a specific occasion like a sympathy card or you want to say thank you to someone, I will make up a card for you," he said.

McNair also wrote a poem in 2001 for the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks and donated proceeds from it to the memorial in front of the World Trade Center. "I kept seeing on the news that so many people lost their lives on 9/11, whether they were Jewish, black, white, or Chinese. The poem that I wrote targeted everyone's emotions no matter what your background was," McNair said, adding that the poem is close to his heart and he hopes that it will help everyone recover from the tragic event. "I worked at the World Trade Center also so I had that emotional attachment to it. I just felt I had to contribute something," he said.

Although McNair has close connections to the Big Apple, Westbury is home for him. "I have been living here in Westbury for nearly 16 years and I don't see myself going anywhere anytime soon," he said, laughing.

As for his dream of being famous, McNair is going to keep working at it and he said that if God wants him to be a famous writer it will happen.