Mary Louise Kelly
Mary Louise Kelly is a co-host of All Things Considered, NPR's award-winning afternoon newsmagazine.
Previously, she spent a decade as national security correspondent for NPR News, and she's kept that focus in her role as anchor. That's meant taking All Things Considered to Russia, North Korea, and beyond (including live coverage from Helsinki, for the infamous Trump-Putin summit). Her past reporting has tracked the CIA and other spy agencies, terrorism, wars, and rising nuclear powers. Kelly's assignments have found her deep in interviews at the Khyber Pass, at mosques in Hamburg, and in grimy Belfast bars.
Kelly first launched NPR's intelligence beat in 2004. After one particularly tough trip to Baghdad — so tough she wrote an essay about it for Newsweek — she decided to try trading the spy beat for spy fiction. Her debut espionage novel, Anonymous Sources, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2013. It's a tale of journalists, spies, and Pakistan's nuclear security. Her second novel, The Bullet, followed in 2015.
Kelly's writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, and other publications. She has lectured at Harvard and Stanford, and taught a course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly serves as a contributing editor at The Atlantic, moderating newsmaker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
A Georgia native, Kelly's first job was pounding the streets as a political reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996, she made the leap to broadcasting, joining the team that launched BBC/Public Radio International's The World. The following year, Kelly moved to London to work as a producer for CNN and as a senior producer, host, and reporter for the BBC World Service.
Kelly graduated from Harvard University in 1993 with degrees in government, French language, and literature. Two years later, she completed a master's degree in European studies at Cambridge University in England.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin about his plans to block a federal funding freeze President Donald Trump ordered Monday. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to author Joseph Finder about his new thriller novel The Oligarch's Daughter, a tale of a man on the run from an elusive and mysterious adversary.
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A memo calling for the halting of federal grant and loan programs for review is causing confusion and uncertainty across the federal government.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with actor Naomi Watts about her new book "Dare I Say It: Everything I Wish I'd Known About Menopause."
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The Biden Administration announced the next batch of 15 prescription drugs that will be included in price negotiations with companies — with the aim of lowering costs for people covered by Medicare.
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This week, the Senate takes up the confirmation of three of President-elect Trump's national security/foreign policy picks. What do the hearings tell us about the incoming administration's priorities?
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NPR recently changed how reporters talk about immigration on air and in pieces for the website. Tony Cavin, NPR's Managing Editor of Standards and Practices, talks us through some of this guidance.
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What happens when wild fires reach the city? NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with fire historian Steve Pyne about the ways in which the fire threat is changing.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Meta Oversight Board co-chair Michael McConnell about the announcement this week that it's getting rid of fact checking in the United States.
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In an exit interview with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, CIA Director William Burns says he still thinks "there's a chance" for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.
