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 chats with journalist Michele Norris about her new podcast Your Mama's Kitchen.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author R.F. Kuang on her novel Yellowface and why she wanted to write a book about cultural appropriation in the publishing world.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Ann Patchett on her latest novel Tom Lake, which tackles family, maternal love and the secrets a mother may choose not to share with her children.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with poet Terrance Hayes about his new collection "So To Speak," which touches on topics from history, to himself and to headlines in the news.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with executive director Patrick Weems on the announcement of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks to author Hila Blum about her novel How to Love Your Daughter, which seems to pose a question: is there such a thing as loving too much?
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, about their 1989 hit "Closer to Fine" being featured prominently in the new Barbie movie.
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SAG-AFTRA, the union representing some of Hollywood's biggest stars, is set to go on strike Thursday. Barring a last-minute breakthrough in talks, it could be the latest strike to shake up Hollywood.
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Attorney Miran Kakaee talks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about how Kurds in Sweden are responding to the concessions the country has made in response to Turkey's demands over their NATO membership.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Chicago Tribune reporter Stacy St. Clair about the Tylenol Murders that happened in the Chicago area in 1982. The prime suspect, James Lewis, died Sunday at age 76.