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 Jeff Reitz, who recently set a Guinness World Record for going to Disneyland for 2,995 consecutive days. That's eight years, three months and 13 days.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Robin Murphy, professor at Texas A&M University, about the through line between a science fiction novel and the current state of AI and automation.
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The science fiction and fantasy magazine Clarkesworld says it has been bombarded with AI-mage stories. Its publisher says it's part of a rise of side hustle culture online.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with co-authors Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy about their new book Sorry, Sorry, Sorry: The Case for Good Apologies.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Ben Bacon, a London-based furniture conservator, about decoding a 20,000-year-old writing system.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Parini Shroff about her debut novel The Bandit Queens, a story about a woman in an Indian village with a dangerous reputation.
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The banjo playing, acting and writer extraordinaire decided to tell his story in a new way: collaborating on his illustrated memoir, Number One is Walking with New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly's conversation with country music artists Tanya Tucker and Brandi Carlile continues. First they talked about their new documentary, now they talk about their friendship.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with country music legend Tanya Tucker and artist Brandi Carlile about their new documentary, "The Return of Tanya Tucker: Featuring Brandi Carlile."
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with George Saunders about his new book, "Liberation Day: Stories."