This is me …

Sarah-Jane Page, novelist, writing coach, teacher and examiner.

Hola, I’m SJ.

Language is everything to me. Words have always felt a little like magic.

I vividly remember my first Spanish lesson at school: my teacher and the foreign tongue I’d never heard before — the words like butterflies on her breath.

Even though I had no idea what she was saying, the beauty of it mesmerised me, and I promised myself that one day I’d speak like that too.

And now I do.

A scenic view of mountains in Andalucia with partly cloudy skies above and a small town in the foreground, viewed from a vehicle with a side mirror visible.

I’ve always followed my bliss.

So far, that’s meant jobs backstage in West End theatre, working with young people in Chilean Patagonia for Raleigh International, travelling solo across Argentina, leading tours around South America, and interpreting in Spain.

And teaching wove its way through much of it. In secondary schools in Suffolk, I taught English and Spanish, became a Head of Year, and discovered just how much I enjoy helping others find their own way with words.

An old, rusty car with a weathered, chipped paint job and a Paraguayan license plate. The background shows an outdoor café with people sitting at tables on a cobblestone street, during what appears to be late afternoon or early evening.

I really loved the classroom, but increasingly I had the sense that I could never quite give the students what they needed. I could tear myself into thirty pieces, for five lessons a day, and still not get close.

My passion for teaching hadn’t gone, but I knew I wanted to work differently: to understand the individual, meet them where they were, and lift the ceiling on what they believed was possible.

So, in 2012, I founded EASTuition, my own private-tuition company, which grew to two teaching centres in Suffolk.

When Covid forced me to close those doors, I took my teaching online and quickly found that the same individual connection could work across a screen — sometimes even better.

A colorful poster with various words and images promoting exam revision courses from April to June 2016. The words 'eastern,' 'exam,' 'revision,' 'courses,' and 'clases' are prominently displayed with different colors and styles. There is also an illustration of a clock pointing to 7 o'clock, and a circular stamp-like graphic indicating the time frame.

And through it all …

I never stopped writing.

Today I’m a novelist on the pot-holed path to publication, represented by Ella Kahn at Apple Tree Literary.

The same part of my brain that loves pulling apart a poem, a play, or an exam question, also loves getting inside a manuscript or the kernel of a new idea: tracing the threads, listening for the echoes, spotting where something is out of tune with itself and asking what it will take to make it sing.

A distant white farmhouse with multiple chimneys in a dry, pebble-covered field under a clear blue sky.
A landscape view of a mountainous region with green trees and shrubs, a clear blue sky, and a distant town on the hillside.

Language is home for me — learning it, teaching it, analysing it, playing with it, and helping other people discover what they can do with it.

And when I’m not doing all of that, you can find me on the couch with a book, my two cats, and a cup of herbal tea.

Or somewhere with a view — wondering what’s over the next hill.

Two black cats lying close together on a soft, furry bed, with their green eyes open.
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