INHERITANCE Magazine’s Wendell Pierce essay named National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards finalist
“Wendell Pierce Is Not Done Yet,” by Ethan Ward, is one of five finalists in its category, with winners named Dec. 6 in Los Angeles.
LOS ANGELES — “Wendell Pierce Is Not Done Yet,” Ethan Ward’s essay on the actor for INHERITANCE Magazine, is a finalist at the Los Angeles Press Club’s 19th National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. It is one of five finalists in Personality Profile, Theater, Culture and Other Arts, a category for work published online. The club announced the finalists Oct. 27.
The essay ran May 4, ahead of Pierce’s run as Othello at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. It traces 40 years of his roles, from Bunk Moreland in The Wire to Antoine Batiste in Treme and Hosea Williams in Selma. Again and again, Pierce plays the man who arrives after a death. Ward reads Othello, an outsider who serves Venice and is destroyed by it, as the role that career has been building toward.
“Most people know Wendell Pierce as Bunk from The Wire. I wanted to look at all of his roles, so I went back through 40 years of his work and found the same kind of man showing up again and again,” said Ethan Ward, founder of HEATDRAWN Media. “I’m grateful to be named alongside writers from Variety, Bustle, Truthdig, and The Contending.”
The other finalists in the category are Frank J. Avella (The Contending), Nolan Feeney (Bustle), Ed Rampell (Truthdig), and Chris Willman (Variety). The awards, founded in 2008, are open to U.S.-based arts and entertainment journalists. This year’s contest covers work published from July 2025 through June 2026.
It is the second time this year the LA Press Club has recognized INHERITANCE. Its essay “The American Experiment” won second place for national political commentary at the club’s Southern California Journalism Awards in June.
Winners will be named at the club’s gala on Sunday, Dec. 6, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. INHERITANCE ran from 2025 to 2026, and its archive, including this essay, stays online at whatweinherit.com.
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About HEATDRAWN Media
HEATDRAWN Media is an independent studio for publishing, audio, and screen, founded in 2020 by product strategist and journalist Ethan Ward. Everything it makes is researched, fact-checked, and true to the people it’s for. Its work includes Reputation, a podcast on homelessness in L.A. that won a 2023 Housing Narrative Award; The Thread, a newsletter that won the 2026 Online Journalism Award for Excellence in AI Innovation; and INHERITANCE Magazine, whose essay “The American Experiment” won two awards in 2026. The studio also makes podcasts, series, and campaigns for brands and organizations.
Press contact
press@heatdrawn.com