WE’VE ALL HEARD the story: underprivileged kid works hard, becomes the first in his family to go to college, goes on to make something of himself. It’s a tale of perseverance, of surpassing expectations, of self-confidence in the face of obstacles.

Sherman Alexie is a lead character in that oft-told story. Born to a Coeur d’Alene Indian father and a Spokane Indian mother and raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Wellpinit, Washington, Alexie was expected to die at six months of water on the brain. When he didn’t, doctors predicted that he would be retarded. Though that fate didn’t come to pass, he suffered seizures and uncontrollable bed-wetting. He was ostracized as a geek.

And then, as that old story sometimes goes, he went on to make something of himself.

Now the author of numerous collections of poetry, two novels, and several short-story collections, including The Toughest Indian in the World (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000) and his latest, Ten Little Indians (Grove, 2003), Alexie is something of a literary juggernaut. He’s the recipient of a PEN/Hemingway Award, a four-time World Heavyweight Poetry Bout champion, and has been designated Best of Young American Novelists by Granta and one of the top writers for the 21st century by the New Yorker. And his success has spilled over to the filmmaking arena; in 1998, Alexie’s own adaptation of one of his short stories debuted as Smoke Signals at the Sundance Film Festival, to critical acclaim. Released by Miramax, the film went on to become a touchstone of Native American cinema.

Q: When you’re putting together a collection of short stories, how do you decide which stories to include and how to put them together?

A: Well, I knew with this book that all the stories were going to focus on white-collar urban Indians. I had a bunch of different kinds of stories, probably about 20 I was looking at, but I focused on a certain class of Indian, the only exception being "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," which I just thought was such a great story that I put it in. And sort of as an exception to prove the rule, maybe.

Q: Do they usually all fit together so well? Is it usually such an obvious grouping?

A: Well, I write obsessively, so generally my writing goes in waves. I’ll get obsessed with one idea or one group of people, and keep writing about them and trying to explore all of their angles. So it seems fairly natural for me to have a collection.

Q: You’ve also written novels and poetry. Is there a form that you’re most comfortable with?

A: Poetry, first and foremost. And then stories. I still feel like an absolute beginner with novels.

Q: Do you feel like you’re pushing yourself to write novels?

A: It feels unnatural.

Q: So why do you do it?

A: Uh, bigger paychecks.

Q: So I assume you think short stories get short shrift among the reading public?

A: Yeah, they do. They do among the reading public, among everybody.

Q: Why do you think that is?

A: You know, I really have no idea. People will say, "I just don’t like short stories. There’s not enough there." I think there’s some snobbish quality to it, as if novels had more inherent artistic value.

Q: When you envision your audience, whom do you picture?

A: Well, I know who it is: it’s about 70 percent college-educated white women. That’s not necessarily who I write to, but I know that’s who’s reading me.

Q: Why do you think your audience is who it is?

A: College-educated white women are the most adventurous and artistic group of people in the country.

Q: I read somewhere that one of your five primary influences was The Brady Bunch. Is that true?

A: [Laughing] Yeah! Sit-coms. I mean, I’m a sit-com kid. All in the Family, Brady Bunch, Three’s Company. So my timing, my sense of humor, my world outlook is definitely partly shaped by situation comedies.

Q: Almost all of your early influences were white. What was it like when you began to discover other Native American writers?

A: Oh, it was as if a whole world had opened up. What it was, was it was validating, in the sense that my ordinary life became important, that my story became a story that could take its place among all stories. Ironically, by reading the work of Native Americans, I felt more like an American.

Q: Talk to me about that.

A: I felt like a part of the country. Like I was connected to everybody, and connected to the culture, and connected to politics and economics. That I wasn’t separated, that I wasn’t on the physical and literary and emotional reservation.

Q: What about your other influences?

A: Well, my grandmother was a very traditional woman, very powerful spiritually, so certainly her power and influence was a large part of my youth. And my dad was a jokester, basketball fiend, really funny, and a compulsive liar. So I’m all that.

Q: You’ve also said that you identify with Kurt Cobain.

A: Well, to the extent of being a small-town guy achieving artistic success — and I certainly have not reached the level that he had — but just in the sense of being a nobody from a nowhere place, and all of a sudden having all this power and privilege. It destroyed him, so I guess in some ways I try to use him as a lesson on how not to be.

Q: So what do you learn from him? How do you not self-destruct?

A: Well, the lucky thing is, I was sober before my career took off. That’s the biggest difference. If I’d been drinking when all this was going on, if I was drinking now, I would be in serious trouble.

Q: Do you think intuitively you knew had to quit drinking before your career could take off?

A: That was part of it. It sounds really arrogant, but I am often very arrogant: I knew this was going to happen. I had strong suspicions that my career was going to be like this. And I knew I didn’t want to end up choking on my own vomit in the bathtub.

Q: It’s interesting to hear you talk about that arrogance and that confidence, because from what I know about you, you almost died of water on the brain, you were expected to be mentally handicapped, you had seizures and bed-wetting issues, and you were essentially a geek as a child. How did you develop the confidence you needed to be a writer and put yourself out there, given that background?

A: Well, I was the best geek there ever was! I don’t know, some of us are born with stronger survival instincts. And I was born with incredible survivor instincts. And you know, when you take those primitive survival instincts and place them in a contemporary cultural setting, it becomes arrogance.

Q: Was your family supportive of you cutting your own path?

A: Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m the first person in my family to ever go to college, so you know, everything I was doing was amazing and supported. I mean, to give you some idea, when I give readings in Spokane, near our reservation, my whole family will be sitting in the third row.

Q: I read that one of your biggest goals has been to get your books read by —

A: Everybody.

Q: But kids on reservations especially?

A: No. Anybody. Everybody. I take it everywhere I can get it.

Q: To what extent do you think you’ve been successful at getting your books onto reservations?

A: Oh, shoot, I mean, everybody knows who I am. Smoke Signals, the movie, really accomplished that. So even if people haven’t read my books, they’ve seen Smoke Signals. I would bet 90 percent of Indians in this country have seen that movie.

Q: What happened to that other 10 percent?

A: They’re probably just people who say they’re Indian. It very well could be 98 or 99 [percent]. I’m being conservative by saying 90.

Q: Do you want to do more work in filmmaking?

A: Yeah. I made a film last year [The Business of Fancydancing] that nobody saw. Your paper was completely divided by it. One of your critics absolutely hated it, and then one of them, Gerald Peary, called it the most underrated film of the year.

Q: So you like him.

A: Well, I don’t know if it’s either thing. It’s probably both things. It’s probably a terrible movie that’s really underrated.

Q: So what makes you want to do more work in film?

A: Two things. We screened Smoke Signals in Minneapolis at the university a couple years ago, and the projector wasn’t working, the sound kept going out, and there were enough Indians in the audience who had seen the movie enough times that they filled in the dialogue. It was the Rocky Horror Indian Picture Show. Also, I have a bunch of photographs in my office of Indian kids who dressed as [Smoke Signals character] Thomas Builds-the-Fire for Halloween. Thomas Builds-the-Fire has become an amazing pop-culture figure in the Indian world, and having touched a little bit of pop culture that way, I realize its enormous power.

Q: You got involved in the anti-war movement recently. Talk to me about why you got involved, and the extent of your involvement.

A: Well, I spoke at a few rallies, I marched, I wrote a lot of essays and columns, and I continue to write a lot of essays and columns. The war is not over, despite mass-media reports to the contrary. It’s nowhere near over. It hasn’t even begun. The situation in Iraq hasn’t even begun. And I continue to write about that. This presidency is embarrassing, mostly, is what it is. And I think what it is, is the last gasp of the white-male power structure. I think Clinton spelled the end of white liberalism, and I think [George] W. is spelling the end of white conservatism, and I think out of the ashes of both, I hope something new is going to arise that’s much more bipartisan.

I have this sneaking suspicion and worry that our country should actually be socially liberal and internationally conservative. So I think what’s going to happen is you’re going to see a democrat, a socially liberal democrat, with strong military backing. Perhaps a general. I mean, ironically, and logically, there is no more democratic place, probably there is no place more revealing and indicative of the greatness of democracy than the US military. So perhaps it does take a general to lead the country. I mean, when we talk about the great presidents of the past, most of them have been generals. So despite my pacifist stance, I’m thinking it might be a democratic military officer who would be the best president.

Q: Tell me about the World Heavyweight Poetry Bout. How does that work?

A: I won it four times. It’s literally like a boxing match: there are 10 rounds, the poets read a poem a round, and then there’s three judges judging them based on the content of the poem and performance. The first nine rounds are poems you’ve written, and then the 10th is extemporaneous — you draw a word out of a hat and you have 30 seconds to come up with a poem.

Q: How important is it for you as a writer to get up in front of an audience?

A: That’s how we originally started! That’s what we used to do. There weren’t one million copies of The Odyssey on Greek book shelves! Being a good performer is part of being a writer. And those writers who aren’t good performers, and who sort of make it a point of pride to be introverted, boring assholes, are denying themselves a huge part of the culture and tradition.

Q: You’ve said that you won’t be the person to write the Great Native American Novel. Why?

A: I’m too old. Great novels aren’t written by thirtysomethings or fortysomethings or fiftysomethings; go look back — when did they write their great novel? Almost everybody was in their 20s.

Sherman Alexie reads at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, in Brookline, on June 16, at 6 p.m. The event is sponsored by Brookline Booksmith. Tickets are $2; call (617) 566-6660. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com