To whom do you owe your perspective—and from whom should you seek insight? Where is the breaking point—and what will the aftermath sing?

A vertex refers to an angular point in a shape—a sharp turn in direction, a collision. It presents in the abolishment of tyrannical structures, but also in the love of form, or the meeting point of past, present and future. In our largest issue thus far, sinθ #16 “VERTEX 角” is an exercise in framing and reframing; in noticing our coded, impure ways of seeing and being.

In this issue:
—The winners of sinθ’s second annual magazine Summer Writing Competition, Stella Li (“etymology of ‘moon’,” Poetry) and Ariel Chu (“The Girlfriend Place,” Fiction).
—Editor Yue Chen profiles K-Ming Chang and her debut novel Bestiary; they broach river-shaped things, the power of namelessness, and queering historical lineages.
—Editor-in-chief Jiaqi Kang speaks with filmmaker Weina Chao, discussing the intimacy of familial documentation, the pressures of portrayal and the dynamics of producing films about Chinese people that never reach Chinese audiences.
—Web Editor Hayley Wu speaks to artist Stephanie H. Shih on ceramics as therapy, the imaginary homeland of Asian America, and organizing as an artist. They also speak to poet Jay G Ying on the racialisation of rest, describing the ‘imagination of disaster’, and negotiating whiteness as an avant-garde writer of color in the UK.
—Editorial intern Stephanie Chang speaks to Isabella Wang for the student spotlight: on training to write like one trains to dance, avoiding self-exoticization, and COVID-19 projects.
—Visual artwork by Sean Dong, Kathi Ha, Brubey Hu KQ Huang, Brubey Hu, Bernice Liu, Juliette Wu and Qianze Zhang.
—Short fiction by Lily Susman, Kwan Ann Tan and May Teng.
—Sixing Xu, Maggie Yuan, Margaret Zhang and Sophie Zhu experiment with categorical deformation in their multimedia.
—Poems by Yongyu Huang, Joshua Ip, Anne Kwok, Jenny Li, Kendrick Loo, Yun Xzi Ho and Yuchen Zhang.