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, and he’s a contributing 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.
He 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.
Books
“Natural Born! Circus, Sideshow and The Art of Being Human”
“Circus Jerks”
Links
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-smith-307a463/
https://www.facebook.com/aaron.smith.876180
Clips and links
Aaron Smith - Author 