Stories that bring people together.
Amplify The Sip is the digital publication and emerging Southern lifestyle brand from The Sip Collective. Spiritual successor to The ‘Sip Magazine. Three to four themed issues a year, each one paired with a live activation that brings the stories into the room.
A publication, and something more.
Amplify The Sip is a digital publication and an emerging Southern lifestyle brand. It’s the spiritual successor to The ‘Sip Magazine, drawing on that archive and the trust that work built.
Every issue is anchored in three ideas. Connection. Experience. Cultural context. Connection is the outcome we measure. Experience is what happens when a story lives in more than one format. Cultural context is what keeps a Southern story from being flattened.
How we work.
Every Amplify story runs through the same four-step practice. We call it Listen, Frame, Tell, Gather. It’s how we move a story from the people whose story it is, through cultural context, into the formats it needs, and into the rooms where connection happens.
Listen
Start with the community, the place, and the people whose story it is.
Frame
Build the cultural and historical context that helps the story land.
Tell
Publish across the formats the story needs. Editorial, film, oral history, design.
Gather
Bring people together around the story. Storytelling becomes participation.
Every issue Tells. Every activation Gathers.
Amplify publishes three to four themed issues a year, with live activations between them. Each issue holds reported features, From the Front Porch (Lauchlin’s column), a ‘Sip Archive pull, a Sip List, a playlist, and a signature video story. Then we bring the theme into a room.
What we inherit, and what we hand down.
The people, places, and practices that made us.
How we hold on, and what we build again.
Nourish
Food as memory, care, and gathering.
Currents
The Mississippi River, and everything it moves.
Blues
The music, the labor, the ownership.
The editorial team.
Amplify is made by a small circle of journalists and cultural workers with deep roots in the South. Most bring their own practice and full-time work to the table. We come together for the stories.
Lauchlin Fields
Founder + Publisher
Vicksburg-based. Twenty years across newsrooms, magazines, and cultural storytelling. Founder of The Sip Collective.
Jim Beaugez
Director of Story + Content
Music and culture journalist. Rolling Stone, Smithsonian, and beyond. Leads reporting and editorial across Amplify’s issues.
Aallyah Wright
Contributor
Delta-born reporter covering rural communities, equity, and the people shaping the South. Capital B contributor. Amplify’s connection to the Delta.
Cortney Lancaster
Operations, via OPUS
Finance, admin, and digital operations. Keeps the practice running behind the stories.
Story partners
Regular contributions from journalists, photographers, and cultural workers across the South.
Where the stories travel.
Amplify issues are paired with a live activation, designed with partners in the community where the story lives. The publication is where the writing lives. The activation is where the connection happens.
- Panels and screenings
- Exhibits and cultural programs
- Oral history and archival projects
- Playlists, Sip Lists, and ‘Sip Archive features
Have a space, an audience, or a partnership that fits? Let’s talk.
Be part of it.
Subscribe
A free note between issues with new stories, playlists, and behind-the-scenes from our storytellers.
Sign upPitch a story
We read carefully. Feature ideas, oral history leads, and photo essays from across the South.
See our pitch guidePartner with us
Museums, foundations, universities, nonprofits. Bring a story to life with our studio, Sip StoryLab.
Work with the studio