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 Paul Begala, former counselor to President Clinton, about the challenges ahead for Democrats as they face scrutiny about transparency surrounding Biden's health.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Honor Jones about her debut novel, Sleep, and how the things people learn and endure in childhood affect how they parent.
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Giuliano Hazan talks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about his mother, Marcella, who brought Italian cooking to Americans.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Vinay Kwatra, Indian ambassador to the U.S., about the violent conflict between India and Pakistan.
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Pope Leo XIV is the first Augustinian friar ever to be selected to lead the Catholic Church. The Villanova graduate was raised in Chicago, where he was known as Robert Prevost. -
President Trump is easing some of his tariffs on the U.S. auto industry. But what will the overall impact of these economic policies mean for the nation's biggest carmakers? Ford Motor CEO weighs in. -
For decades in the U.S., chicken breasts were pricier and more popular than chicken thighs. But that seems to be changing.
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U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón reflects on her term and the urgency of connecting to nature through poetry. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Jill Escher, president of the National Council on Severe Autism, about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's remarks this month on autism.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Samia about her new album, Bloodless, and the inspiration she took from contemplating nothingness.
