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.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist, about how the Netflix show Adolescence depicts the struggles of young boys.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Kim Aris, son of ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi, about her imprisonment and why he's advocating for her release. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to author and former New York Times Paris bureau chief Elaine Sciolino about the new book, How to Fall in Love with the Louvre.
-
NPR's Mary Louise talks with Mark Rylance about Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, in which he revisits his role as Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Mohamed Riyas, acting country director for Myanmar at the International Rescue Committee, about relief efforts in the wake of a devastating earthquake. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Emma Pattee. Her debut novel, Tilt, is about a devastating earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, and one pregnant woman's quest to get back home after it.
-
The new album from Belgian singer Tamino, Every Dawn's A Mountain, is a mysterious reflection on loss and change after he settled in New York City.
-
In a sudden move, the CEO of Amtrak stepped down. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with the Rail Passengers Association's Jim Matthews about the future of the U.S. Passenger Rail Service.
-
The White House says the USIP's acting president and CEO George Moose was fired last week along with most of the board for failing to comply with an executive order.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Colm Toibin about his new novel Long Island, which centers around a woman dealing with the fallout of a pregnancy caused by her husband's betrayal.
