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 talks with Elisabeth Moss, star of The Veil, ahead of the action thriller show's season finale.
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Widespread thunderstorms have caused major damage and killed 22 people in the central U.S. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Washington Post meteorologist Matthew Cappucci as the storms move east.
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The 2024 French Open for tennis is underway. Here's what we're seeing on the women's side.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with the Chief Creative Officer of the Disney Theatrical Group, Thomas Schumacher, about the legacy of Disney songwriter Richard Sherman.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Anne Banfield, a doctor who left what has been characterized as an "abortion desert" nearly two years after the fall of Roe v. Wade.
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Stephen King is out with a new collection of short stories. As you might expect from the reigning King of Horror, some are terrifying. Some are creepy. Others are laugh-out-loud funny. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with author Stephen King about his new collections of short stories, You Like It Darker.
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With the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, many are looking to understand what's next for the country's government and citizens.
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Brown pelicans are appearing on California's coastline. They are showing up emaciated, starving and weak. Dr. Elizabeth Wood of the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center of Orange County explains.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Dalibor Rohác of the American Enterprise Institute about the attempt to assassinate Slovakian PM Robert Fico and the broader political landscape in Europe.
