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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As the presidential race ramps up in Georgia, one vital voting demographic is mobilizing and hoping to impact the race: young people.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with three women, all Democrats, about Kamala Harris' historic candidacy and why they plan on voting for her.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Georgia Republican Party chair Josh McKoon in Atlanta ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports from the swing state of Georgia on efforts to rally Republican and Democratic voters.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Lyndsay Rush, the poet behind @maryoliversdrunkcousin on Instagram, on how she went from not liking poetry to publishing her debut book of poems, A BIT MUCH.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks to co-founder of Black Voters Matter, LaTosha Brown, about political organizing efforts in Georgia ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
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LaTosha Brown — the co-founder of Black Voters Matter — details how she's thinking about the election to come in Georgia, and the threat of voter suppression and disinformation. -
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with actress Gillian Anderson about her new book, Want, which is a compilation of women's anonymous, sexual fantasies from all over the world.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly sits down with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
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Georgia is a key swing state — it carries a lot of electoral votes. Only seven states have more. The Harris and Trump campaigns see it as key to their path to the presidency.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with director Susanne Bier about her new mystery, crime drama The Perfect Couple, on Netflix.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with 9news anchor Kyle Clark, who was praised for his performance as a moderator at a debate with Republican Colorado congressional candidates in May.
