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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For a few weeks each year, Horsetail Fall at Yosemite national park glows gold just before sunset. They call it the "Firefall." But it only happens if conditions are perfect.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with astrobiologists Catherine Neish and Kevin Hand about missions to Saturn's moon Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa, to search for conditions that could support life.
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In Michigan, a push to encourage voters to send President Biden a message about his refusal to call for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza may have worked. Here's how his campaign moves forward. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with the co-chair of the Biden campaign Mitch Landrieu about the Michigan primary results and challenges for the campaign moving forward.
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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 Barbie movie, which is up for eight Oscars.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with journalist and author Steve Coll about his new book, The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, The CIA, and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with volleyball analyst Emily Ehman about the sport's new rule change that is causing a stir in the women's game.
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Alabama's new court ruling that frozen embryos should receive legal protections as "unborn life," leaves fertility clinics and parents-to-be in limbo.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University's Jameel Jaffer about arguments that prosecuting Julian Assange would threaten press freedom.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Miami Herald reporter Jacqueline Charles about those indicted in the 2021 assassination of the Haitian president, including his widow and the former prime minister.
