Maria Campbell - novelist, playwright and winner of the Canada Council for the Arts' 2004 Molson Prize - will deliver the 2005 Stapleford Lecture 7:30 p.m.,Wed., March 23, at Campion College Auditorium, on the University of Regina campus. The title of her lecture will be "Stories of the Road Allowance People."

Campbell is one of Canada's finest aboriginal writers, playwrights, theatre producers and filmmakers. Her career began in 1973 when she published her autobiography, Halfbreed. The book has become a literary classic and continues to be one of the most widely taught texts in Canadian literature. She has also written four children's books and Stories of the Road Allowance People, which translates oral stories into print. 

Campbell's first professionally produced stage play, Flight, was the first all-aboriginal theatre production in Canada. Flight brought modern dance, storytelling and drama together with traditional aboriginal art practices. She went on to write, direct, and produce six other plays, some of which toured in Canada and abroad. From 1985 to 1997 she founded and operated her own film and video production company where she wrote and directed seven documentaries and produced the first weekly aboriginal television series entitled My Partners, My People. 

In addition to the Molson Prize she received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, the Chalmers Award for Best New Play (Jessica), a national Dora Mavor Moore Award for playwrighting, and the Woman at the Top award, City of Saskatoon. She has also been inducted into the Saskatchewan Theatre Hall of Fame. 

Campbell holds three honorary doctorates and has served as writer in residence at libraries and universities throughout the prairies for two decades. She speaks four languages and is a sought-after guest speaker in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan and lives in Gabriel's Crossing, Saskatchewan. 

The Stapleford lecture series was created in 1989 when Elsie Maude Stapleford, who passed away in November 2004, established an endowment for a lecture series at the University of Regina in honour of her parents, the Reverend Ernest W. Stapleford and Maude Stapleford. Ernest Stapleford was the president of Regina College from 1915 to 1934, and principal from 1934 to 1937. The endowment provides for the University of Regina to bring a guest lecturer distinguished in his or her area of study to the University at least once a year to present a free public lecture.