He grew up in Mount Maunganui[1] reading Shoot magazine, Roy of the Rovers and Tiger and Scorcher comic books.
Braunias was educated at Mount Maunganui College, and then attended the Wellington Polytechnic (now Massey University) journalism course in 1980 but did not graduate.
The $35,000 Braunias received from the 2010 CLNZ Writers' Award[5] enabled him to work on Civilisation: 20 Places at the Edge of the World, an affectionate travel book about 20 small towns published in November 2012 by Awa Press.
He’s into Brian Granville and Graham Greene, and when his columns first appeared he called people out in a way no other New Zealand journalist was doing at the time.
He wrote about sitting around in the dole in old lady cafes, eating pastries and pink lamingtons and enjoying an honest pot of tea.