Jay Newton-Small

Newton-Small's father died with Alzheimer's disease. After several years of incubating the ideas, she cofounded in 2016—with Denver Nicks, and Steve Gettinger—MemoryWell, a network of professional journalists who write and retell the life stories of those suffering from Alzheimer's and other dementias, supporting their caregivers and preserving memories of the lives who forgot how to remember. She and Denver Nicks were staff writers at TIME magazine and graduates of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Steve Gettinger reminisced personal about his mother in "The Zen of Alzheimer's" for The New York Times Magazine. One of MemoryWell's goals is to extend the memory in others of those whose memory has failed by developing professionally written profiles of persons with a dementia. In February 2017, Newton-Small began a six-month live-in residency at Halcyon House Located in the heart of the Georgetown section of in Washington, D.C., where start-ups can develop their business strategy.

Jay Newton-Small was an only child born to Sue S. (Tang) Newton-Small, an international lawyer who had been born in Hong Kong as Sok Chun ("Spring Flower") Tang on December 13, 1948, and who fluently spoke Cantonese, and Graham 'Gray' Newton-Small, an Australian economist whose Alzheimer's disease later inspired her to begin MemoryWell. Both of her parents were United Nations diplomats who traveled and reared Jay overseas, outside the United States. They had met in Zambia while both traveled the world for the United Nations and continue to do so thereafter. They were married for forty years and retired to Naples, Florida. Her mother, Sue S. (Tang) Newton-Small, was a passionate Republican fundraiser and socialite who loved George W. Bush and disliked Barack Obama.