Aaron Smith

Aaron Smith is an award-winning journalist, author and former circus worker. He

was born in Florida and thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. When

he was 19, he joined the circus.

He worked as a vendor for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, living on the

train and selling cotton candy. Then he was a vendor and roustabout for the Big Apple

Circus, setting up and tearing down the big top.

He wrote a memoir about his teenage experiences called Circus Jerks. He lived on the

Ringling train, travelling across America with clowns, elephants and dancing girls. He

graduated from Northern Vermont University with a bachelor’s in creative writing and he

lives near Coney Island, NY.

He’s been a journalist for decades. He is a business reporter for the Financial Times

company, where he and his teammates won two Neal awards for business journalism.

He is also a freelance business reporter for Newsday. He was a CNN reporter for 13

years, covering the markets, the gun industry, the cannabis industry and white-collar

crime. He interviewed Bernie Madoff. He also covered the gun industry for Forbes and

the cannabis industry for High Times.

Aaron was born to write about the circus. Now he’s taking on a controversial subject,

disabled performers in 21st -century sideshows, with his new book: Natural Born!

Circus, Sideshow and The Art of Being Human.