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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President Trump has been bullish on stopping the flow of drugs from Latin America. What exactly is this administration's strategy for stopping drug trafficking?
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Amid reports Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike on a Venezuelan boat, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine about how Congress is handling oversight of the Pentagon.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with the author Ann Packer about her new novel, Some Bright Nowhere.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef about Tucker Carlson's interview with white nationalist and holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and the rift it's creating.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with White House correspondent Deepa Shivaram and Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman about President Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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After years of shrinking, the gender pay gap is widening. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Washington Post reporter Taylor Telford about why some women are leaving the workforce.
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Regina Barber and Emily Kwong of NPR's Short Wave talk about the brain benefits of quitting cigarettes, language development in premature babies, and a mysterious imprint in a Chicago sidewalk.
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A smartwatch maker and a popular running app are locked in a legal dispute -- and if it ends badly, runners are wondering how this will affect their ability to track their runs.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks to Keri Russell and Allison Janney about their roles in season 3 of The Diplomat.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben about their new thriller, Gone Before Goodbye.