The Creative Awards are just too full of dreams.

It seems that submissions for the Creative Awards 2026 have started today!

Last year, I received the KADOKAWA Business Editorial Department Award in the essay category of the Creative Awards 2025, and I am currently writing a manuscript for the publication of an essay book.

I think the Creative Awards are just too full of dreams. It is an award where anyone has a chance to publish a book as an essayist. I have never heard of any other award like the Creative Awards.

Writing a whole book's worth of essays is incredibly difficult, but I spend my days savoring the joy of being able to create an essay book with the help of professionals.

While I do feel that I was truly lucky to have won, I also feel proud of my past self, thinking, 'Well done!' That is because last year, I 'finished my work with the intention of applying to the Creative Awards.'

I had been using note until 2024, and of course, I knew about the Creative Awards and had participated in a way. However, that just meant I added the application tag to the daily articles I was already writing; I wasn't able to write and submit a piece specifically for the Creative Awards. Thinking about it now, there was no way I could have gotten results that way. I didn't even feel frustrated. For 2025, I decided that regardless of the outcome, I would at least write and challenge myself with an essay I could submit with confidence. I read through the comments from each media outlet, the answers in the question box of last year's winner, Honoka Nagase (which was truly amazing), and grasped the trends from the works that remained in the semi-finals the previous year. I did what I could to prepare, and on top of that, I poured my energy into writing a piece that could bring out a color that only I have.

Therefore, if I were to tell one thing to those interested in the Creative Awards this year, it is that I really want you to try writing with the Creative Awards as your target. I suddenly sound like a senior who has retired from a club activity and comes to peek at practice after school, blowing their own horn, but that is what I wanted to convey today. You might think I'm saying something more basic than any other senior. But that was the main thing I wanted to say.

And some of you might think, 'You shouldn't have retired, you should apply again this year,' but right now, I have such a strong feeling that if I write something good, I want to put it all in a book, so I think I will pass this year. In other words, I don't have the capacity.

Writing with the Creative Awards as a target is such an obvious thing to do. But that was the past me who wasn't able to do that. I also thought that since I didn't have any big stories, the Creative Awards would be impossible, so I didn't take it as something personal, and just thought I'd add the tag since it's easy to apply. I didn't think at all about what the judges were looking for, what past winners had, or what kind of color I could bring to the table and give it shape. I feel that it is truly extremely important in a contest to think about what is required before you start writing, rather than being self-indulgent.

By the way, my husband, who had the idea last year saying, 'Maybe I'll write a mystery and submit it to the Creative Awards next year,' gave a surprising answer when I checked his progress the other day: 'Did I say that? Now that you mention it, maybe I did.' He is currently obsessed with other things and is busy with that. Even if people are enthusiastic and try to do something once, because people are busy, they forget, give up, or end up just adding a tag to a past article. In the midst of that, if you can challenge yourself and see it through to the end, I think you might be able to see something.

This year, I will do my best to write, aiming for a book that people will want to buy, in order to fulfill my responsibility as a winner. I hope this year's Creative Awards will be exciting too!

The end