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.
-
A federal judge in Alaska resigns after investigators conclude he created a hostile environment for law clerks and had an inappropriate relationship with one of them.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Paul Begala, former counselor to President Clinton, about the challenge the White House has in controlling the scrutiny surrounding President Biden's ability.
-
As quarterfinal are underway, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Washington Post Reporter Ava Wallace on the biggest storylines happening at Wimbledon.
-
The NATO summit in Washington kicked off Tuesday morning. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly sat down with the top diplomats from eight Nordic and Baltic nations for a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.
-
President Biden kicks off a NATO summit with a speech. It will be scrutinized because of questions about whether he's still up to the job.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Evan Osnos, New Yorker staff writer and author of a Joe Biden biography, about this crossroads for the Biden campaign as more Democrats call for him to step aside.
-
Montgomery County Police Department Officer Laurie Reyes speaks with NPR about the autism and dementia unit that is saving lives and helping families in Maryland.
-
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly talks with Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, about why summer solstice came so early this year and what it signifies.
-
In Thailand, lawmakers have voted overwhelmingly to legalize same-sex marriage. If the measure goes into effect, Thailand’s government would become only the third in Asia to permit same-sex marriage.
-
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Aaron Mackey with the Electronic Frontier Foundation — a nonprofit which advocates for civil liberties in the digital world — about warning labels on social media.