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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The United States is millions of homes short of demand, and lacks enough affordable housing units. And many Americans feel like housing costs are eating up too much of their take-home pay. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with playwright Peter Morgan about his Broadway production of "Patriots," a play about the rise of Russian oligarchs, Vladimir Putin, and the downfall of the USSR.
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Taylor Swift's new album "The Tortured Poets Department" is out today. But there's more to Swift than just her music. NPR's All Things Considered examines her cultural impact.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Salman Rushdie about his new book, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.
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All Things Considered co-host Mary Louise Kelly talks with South Carolina Gamecocks' coach Dawn Staley about the state of women's basketball and her growing legacy as the new "standard" for coaching.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks to journalist David Sanger about his new book, New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, And America's Struggle To Defend The West.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about what this escalation tells us about Iran's strategy.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson announced a path forward on aid to Ukraine and Israel after months of delay because of GOP divisions. Iran's attack on Israel increased pressure on Congress to act.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with former Israeli intelligence official Sima Shina about Iran's unprecedented attack on Israel, what might come next, and the risks for the Middle East and beyond.
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Sam McAlister was the BBC booker who persuaded Prince Andrew to go on record about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. It's the subject of new Netflix movie Scoop.
