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 CIA Director William Burns about Russia, China and what keeps him up at night.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Chad Neilsen, director of infection prevention at UF Health Jacksonville, about the worst surge of COVID-19 patients his hospitals have seen yet.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis about the increase in the number of migrants crossing the border into Lithuania from Belarus.
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In an exclusive NPR interview, CIA Director William Burns addresses Taliban advances in Afghanistan, and what U.S. intelligence can do once the U.S. military leaves the country.
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In an NPR interview, William Burns says he has appointed a senior officer who led the hunt for Osama bin Laden to head the investigation into ailments that has afflicted U.S. officials worldwide. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Miranda Cowley Heller about her first novel, The Paper Palace, which is set in late summer on Cape Cod — and is all about desire.
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What can youth coaches learn from a fictional TV one like Ted Lasso? Lots, according to the Positive Coaching Alliance, an organization that helps train coaches in the power of positivity.
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The Great Salt Lake's water level is projected to hit a 170-year low this year. Scientists say that could have dire implications for migratory birds, if the lake's food chain collapses as a result.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with New York Times Tokyo bureau chief Motoko Rich on the Japanese public's concern over the government's decision to hold the Olympics despite rising cases of COVID-19.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with pro-democracy opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya of Belarus, who remains in exile after challenging her country's authoritarian president.
