In writing “Saying Goodbye to Yang” and the other stories collected in “Children of the New World,” Alexander Weinstein, who was 39 when the book was published, mined his own experiences and the contemporary American culture around him. Weinstein, who is white, was born in New York, attended Naropa University, which was founded by a Buddhist teacher, and then pursued masters degrees at Indiana University. He resides in Michigan.

“Saying Goodbye to Yang” was inspired by Weinstein’s observation of society’s growing infatuation with technology:

Around the same time, a lot of my students were getting iPhones, and talking about how much they loved them—saying that, if they lost anything, please don’t let it be their iPhones. I got the sense that we were all starting to forge this very deep emotional connection with technology (Raferty, Brian. “Don't Worry, This Author's Got Our Dystopia All Figured Out.” Wired, 20 Sept. 2016).

Using speculative fiction to extrapolate a future that is even more reliant on technology than the time of publication, Weinstein comments on contemporary issues by exaggerating our obsessions with devices. After experiencing his computer crashing and losing a lot of his important files, in addition to witnessing his students anthropomorphizing their phones, Weinstein was able to imagine a world in which grief for obsolete technology would be normalized.