Welcome to INHERITANCE
A long-form publication for people questioning the life they were handed.
What do you keep from the world that shaped you — and what do you leave behind?
INHERITANCE explores what we carry forward from family, culture, race, ambition, and nation. And what happens when the life we inherited no longer fits. Through reported essays and lived experience, I examine the economic, cultural, and institutional systems we inherit — and what it costs to keep believing in them.
If you’ve ever paused mid-achievement and wondered whether the ambition was actually yours, this publication is for you.
✦ Who This Is For
INHERITANCE is for readers who sense they’re living inside someone else’s expectations — and are trying to decide what it would mean to step out.
For people who think about inheritance not just as money or property, but as the unspoken contracts we enter without signing. The beliefs we carry because someone else packed them. The futures we pursue because we inherited the map.
If you’ve ever looked at the life you were building and asked, Is this actually mine? — you’ll find something here.
This is a publication about noticing what shaped you, and consciously deciding what comes next.
✦ Who I Am
I’m Ethan Ward, an award-winning journalist born in Washington, D.C., shaped by 13 years in Los Angeles, and currently writing from Southeast Asia.
My work has appeared in USA Today, NPR, Slate, Fast Company, Marketplace, and PBS SoCal. I've reported on technology, housing, culture, and equity. I executive produced an award-winning limited series podcast on homelessness, recognized by the LA Press Club and the Housing Narrative Lab.
INHERITANCE is where I examine what I inherited as an American, a Black man, and a journalist — and what I’m choosing to carry now that I’ve left.
That includes the archaeology of Black American ambition: the promises we’re given, the rewards we’re taught to chase, and what remains when those promises fail to deliver.
✦ What You’ll Get
One or two long-form essays each month, grounded in lived experience and reporting, examining the forces shaping how we live, work, move, and decide who we’re becoming.
The work sits at the intersection of memoir, cultural criticism, and journalism.
Posts are organized by how they arrived and what they examine:
What I’ve Taken — what I’m reading, watching, noticing, and carrying with me
Inherited Beliefs — inherited culture, unexpected lessons, moments that found me
What I’ll Share — long-form essays and reflections that linger
Cultural Contracts — cultural expectations, social scripts, and ideas I’m actively releasing
A Note — personal dispatches when the mood strikes
✦ Free & Paid Access
Free subscribers receive:
Public essays on culture, ambition, and inheritance — published 1–3 times per month.
Paid subscribers ($7/month or $49/year) receive:
Everything in free, plus:
Narrated versions of major essays, recorded for immersive listening
Private field notes and unfinished thinking — material behind the published work
Photo essays and visual field notes not released publicly
Companion pieces and archival context that deepen select essays
Paid membership is for readers who want deeper access to the process and the work behind the work.
✦ What Else?
I’m also the creator of The Thread, a digital museum that used AI to uncover patterns in obituaries from seemingly unrelated lives — an earlier exploration of meaning, memory, and what remains after we’re gone.
INHERITANCE is a publication of HEATDRAWN, an independent media studio developing original work across publishing, audio, and emerging formats.
Licensing and media inquiries: inheritance@heatdrawn.com.
