Story-to-experience, Mississippi and the South
We turn stories into experiences that connect people and place.
Stories, exhibits and oral histories from The Sip Collective, the storytelling studio Lauchlin Fields founded in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
What I do
I help local stories reach the people they belong to.
The Sip Collective
The storytelling studio I founded. My team and I turn stories from Mississippi and the South into magazines, exhibits, oral histories and gatherings.
Blue Engine Collaborative
I’m part of Blue Engine’s core team, helping lead its programs for news organizations, coaching the teams in them and shaping the tools and materials behind the work. Visit Blue Engine
The story-to-experience model
A story doesn't end when it's published.
First, the story
We develop the story.
It starts with reporting. Through The ’Sip magazine and now Amplify The Sip, we tell the stories of the people, places, culture and history shaping the South.
Then, the experience
We make it shared.
Each story becomes the start of something people gather around: a conversation, an exhibit, a performance or a community event.
Then, connection
People come together.
In real, physical spaces, people gather to reflect, to belong and to build something that lasts beyond the page.
Who’s behind it
I’m Lauchlin Fields.
I started as a reporter at The Vicksburg Post. In the 20-plus years since, I’ve worked on every side of a story: writing it, publishing it, growing the audience for it and building the experiences and businesses that keep it going.
I built The Sip Collective because local stories too often feel disconnected from the people and places they belong to. Important voices, histories and perspectives get overlooked, or lost entirely, over time. My work is about closing that gap: helping people see themselves in their communities, connect across past and present and engage more deeply with where they live.
Why it matters
Stories connect us, and connection creates change.
When a community’s stories are preserved and shared in person, people gather, reflect and belong. That’s the future of storytelling we’re building, one porch, one room, one community at a time.
Selected work
The work itself.
Exhibits, journalism, oral histories and digital work, made with the people and teams named here. Some of it is finished, and some of it is still underway.
Completed, began in 2010
Blues @ Home
I was project manager for Blues @ Home, a collaboration with artist H.C. Porter that documented Mississippi’s living blues legends. Her 31 mixed-media portraits were paired with oral histories I collected, and the paintings, voices and original recordings became a nationally toured exhibition.
See the project at H.C. Porter GalleryCompleted exhibits and oral histories
Created by the LFVC team for the Catfish Row Museum in Vicksburg.
These exhibits are the experience step of our story-to-experience model: reporting and oral histories turned into spaces people can walk into, share and come back to.
Pop-up exhibitPatrick Kelly
Honoring the Vicksburg-born designer who brought Southern Black style to the Paris runways.
Pop-up exhibitFood for Thought
On food, memory and the tables that hold a community together.
Pop-up exhibitMerchants of Vicksburg
The entrepreneurs and storefronts that built Vicksburg’s commercial life.
Pop-up exhibitRosenwald Schools
Raising Standards: how J.H. Culkin and the Rosenwald Schools built community through the schoolroom in Warren County.
Oral history projectVicksburg Voices
First-person stories gathered from across the city, preserved for the community.
Current, 2025 to present
Blue Engine Collaborative
A global team of coaches, advisers and consultants that helps news organizations build sustainable businesses.
As part of Blue Engine’s core team, I help lead and deliver its programs and coaching engagements, coach news organizations and their teams directly, support fellow coaches and help design the tools, curricula and materials that make the work last.
Completed, 2012 to 2022
Front Porch Fodder
The storytelling and content studio I founded and co-owned for ten years, building brand, editorial and community work for clients across the South. For most of that run I ran it alongside my business partner Cortney Lancaster, who now carries that work forward through OPUS.
In progress, 2025 to 2027
Cultural Bridges
A collaborative project connecting the histories of Vicksburg and Mound Bayou through research, oral history and cultural preservation. As creative partner, LF Voices Collective leads the storytelling strategy, creative direction and community engagement, building a lasting shared record through a short film, museum exhibits and a community story archive. This project is made possible with support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
See the project at Shape Up Mississippi
Publications and journalism
Twenty years of reporting, publishing and audience work
Completed, 2014 to 2018
The ’Sip Magazine
A quarterly print magazine about Mississippi’s people, food, music and back roads. I founded, published and edited all 15 issues, and every one now lives in The ’Sip Archive.
Visit The ’Sip ArchiveCompleted, 2016 to 2024
Mississippi Today and Deep South Today
I helped launch Mississippi Today’s website in 2016 and went on to lead its audience team, then joined Deep South Today’s leadership as it grew into a regional network of newsrooms.
Visit Mississippi TodayCompleted, 2003 to 2008
The Vicksburg Post
Where my career began. Five years of reporting on the people, schools and institutions of Vicksburg and Warren County. A selection of clips is below.
Visit The Vicksburg PostFrom The Vicksburg Post, 2004 to 2008
All stories originally published in The Vicksburg Post and shared with credit to the Post. Each headline opens the original page clipping on Newspapers.com.
Everything I’ve built started in this newsroom. Five years of reporting at the Post taught me to listen first, get the details right and trust that the people in a community are its best storytellers. It’s still how I work today.
- Jan. 4, 2004
Woman says faith has been secret to longevity
My first byline: Shady Lawn resident Everline King, 101, on faith, family and a long life.
First byline - Dec. 19, 2004
The Red Tops: Rufus McKay back home in Vicksburg after years away
An original member of the Red Tops, Vicksburg’s well-known dance band, recalls the early days.
- Jan. 9, 2005
Catfish Row: Famous line captures Vicksburg in Delta mystique
The history behind Catfish Row and the Levee Street fish houses people still remember.
- Feb. 26, 2005
A story never told
Opera singer Lucia Hawkins works to keep alive the memory of the founders of Mount Calvary M.B. Church.
- Feb. 5 and 6, 2006
Hispanics: Building a bridge
A front-page series on the area’s growing Hispanic community, why people came and the language barrier many faced. Linked: part one.
Series - July 6 to 8, 2008
Number on the rise in Warren County
A three-part series on teen pregnancy in Warren County. Linked: part one.
Series
Written about the work
- The Lenfest InstituteMastering the funnel: How Mississippi Today maximized impact with The Backchannel seriesA case study of the audience and reader revenue strategy behind the Pulitzer Prize-winning series.
- Mississippi Today, 2023Mississippi Today wins national award for digital innovationFirst place for best reader revenue strategy from the Local Media Association, a strategy I led with Bethany Atkinson and Alyssa Bass.
- Mississippi Today, 2020Web and engagement editor Lauchlin Fields named INN Emerging LeaderOne of 11 newsroom leaders named to the Institute for Nonprofit News’ 2020 Emerging Leaders Council.
- HottyToddy.com, 2015Ole Miss alumni tastes ‘The ’Sip’ of success with statewide magazineA profile of The ’Sip in its first year.
From the Front Porch:
A column by Lauchlin Fields
From the Front Porch: Building on a Foundation of Resilience
Lauchlin Fields with Vasti Jackson in 2011 It’s no coincidence that the first issue of Amplify The Sip begins with resilience. Eleven years after first publishing The ‘Sip magazine, I’ve found myself back where it all began—telling Mississippi...
The Audience Is the Foundation. The Work Is Connection.
After a decade in “audience work,” Lauchlin Fields explains why the future of journalism depends on treating audience as the foundation—not the afterthought.
How I work
From first conversation to finished work.
Every project moves through the same four steps, whether it ends up as a magazine story, an exhibit or a room full of neighbors. Each step builds on the one before it.
Listen
Start with the community, the archive and the people whose story it is, before deciding what the story will become.
Vicksburg Voices began by gathering first-person stories from neighbors across the city.
Frame
Build the history and context that help a story land with people who weren’t there.
The Rosenwald Schools exhibit set the story of J.H. Culkin inside the larger history of how Warren County built community through its schools.
Vocalize
Tell the story in every form it needs, from reporting and film to exhibits and print.
Blues @ Home carried the same stories through paintings, recorded voices and a touring exhibition.
Connect
Design the moments that turn readers into participants and visitors into community.
Cultural Bridges brings Vicksburg and Mound Bayou together through a film, exhibits and community gatherings.
Have a story, an idea or a project in mind? I’d love to hear about it.
Support this work
Help keep these stories alive.
The Sip Collective tells people-first stories from Mississippi and the South, preserves the region’s cultural archives and creates new ways for communities to connect. Your gift keeps The ’Sip Archive online, funds new Amplify stories and supports oral history work like Cultural Bridges.
We’re fiscally sponsored by Tiny News Collective, so your gift is tax-deductible.
