{"id":2,"date":"2026-08-26T14:10:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T14:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-09-21T14:33:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T14:33:37","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>It&#8217;s so weird writing a bio in third person. Oh well<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bruce H. McCosar is a former chemist, teacher, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jamendo.com\/artist\/3737\/bruce-h-mccosar\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.jamendo.com\/artist\/3737\/bruce-h-mccosar\">musician<\/a> living in Maryland. He is biracial, and a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.muscogeenation.com\/\">Muscogee (Creek) Nation<\/a>. Depending on how time is reckoned, he&#8217;s been writing since either 1984 or 2023. Though he primarily writes speculative fiction (SF\/F\/H* = science fiction, fantasy, horror), he reads pretty much anything that interests him. He&#8217;s a fan of small presses and great editors, of tight plotting and compelling fictional worlds.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">* One of my pet peeves with the Internet is people using acronyms without explaining what they mean. GACA.<sup>\u2020<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u2020 Get A Clue Already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">My Family Name<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although it could be mistaken for Scottish, McCosar is an American Indian name (Creek Nation). It is pronounced <em>mic-CO-saar<\/em> \/m\u026a.\u02c8ko.sa\u02d0r\/.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It comes from my ancestor, Cosa Fixico, nicknamed &#8220;Mac.&#8221; During the Trail of Tears (1830s), the name was written down as Mac Cosar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And thus we come to my name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every McCosar on Earth is related to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">(I wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/?p=158\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"158\">a separate post<\/a> about my family.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">* Those seven letters, although pronounced phonetically, have given me trouble my whole life. Sometimes people look at it and say &#8220;McCosgar&#8221; like &#8220;Mc Coast Guard.&#8221; Are you kidding me? Does anyone see a &#8220;g&#8221; in the middle of my name? Seriously, people. Phonics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Where to Find Me Online<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Important<\/strong>: I don&#8217;t do Meta or X. If someone has my name on X, Facebook, Instagram, or Threads, it&#8217;s not me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Otherwise, here&#8217;s where to find me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Bluesky: <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/bmccosar.bsky.social\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/bmccosar.bsky.social\">@bmccosar.bsky.social<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mastodon: <a href=\"https:\/\/mastodon.art\/@bmccosar\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/mastodon.art\/@bmccosar\">@bmccosar<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Is that it? That&#8217;s it. I keep it simple.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, from 2006 to 2010, I was a musician. You can find that work on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jamendo.com\/artist\/3737\/bruce-h-mccosar\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.jamendo.com\/artist\/3737\/bruce-h-mccosar\">Jamendo<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">As a Writer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I do NOT use AI.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, I wrote <a href=\"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/?p=87\" data-type=\"post\" data-id=\"87\">a huge article about why I hate it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I use Open Source Software<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I write in as distraction-free an environment as I can. Here&#8217;s my setup and work flow:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Most of my work is done on either a Lenovo laptop running <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fedoraproject.org\/\">Fedora Linux<\/a>, or an old Acer gaming laptop running <a href=\"https:\/\/linuxmint.com\/\">Linux Mint<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I write all of my stories (novels included) in plain text, using the <a href=\"https:\/\/kate-editor.org\/\">Kate  text editor<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>These are formatted in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markdownguide.org\/\">Markdown<\/a>, which can be easily transformed into other formats using <a href=\"https:\/\/pandoc.org\/\">pandoc<\/a> (for instance, html, odt, docx).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I will perform final proofreads \/ edits in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.libreoffice.org\/\">LibreOffice<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I use <a href=\"https:\/\/inkscape.org\/\">Inkscape<\/a> to create my maps and graphics, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/wonderdraft.net\/\">Wonderdraft<\/a> for basic map builds.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I use the GNU image program, but dislike it&#8217;s name as it is a slur against the disabled. (In my notes, I refer to it as GRIPE, the GNU Really Inappropriate Picture Editor.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I wrote my own build \/ archiving \/ submissions tracking system using <a href=\"https:\/\/www.python.org\/\">Python<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gnu.org\/software\/make\/manual\/make.html\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.gnu.org\/software\/make\/manual\/make.html\">GNU make<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/man7.org\/linux\/man-pages\/man1\/bash.1.html\">Bash<\/a> scripts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><em>(More to come later as I build the site.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s so weird writing a bio in third person. Oh well. Bruce H. McCosar is a former chemist, teacher, and musician living in Maryland. He is biracial, and a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. Depending on how time is reckoned, he&#8217;s been writing since either 1984 or 2023. Though he primarily writes speculative fiction [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171,"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bmccosar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}