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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"Sharing grief brings people together," says historian Micki McElya. The ceremony in Washington, D.C., Tuesday is the most prominent memorial so far to the victims of COVID-19. -
A year into the COVID-19 crisis, Dr. Robert Redfield stands by his federal health agency's response to the pandemic despite an early "learning curve" and contradictory messaging from President Trump.
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Voting rights activist LaTosha Brown says the Senate runoff results in Georgia represent how mobilizing and harnessing the power of Black voters can help forge a new political landscape.
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Voters in Georgia headed to the polls on Tuesday in the runoff elections that will determine control of the U.S. Senate. NPR speaks with some of them.
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With control of the U.S. Senate hinging on Georgia's runoff elections, groups working to turn out Black voters there are not slowing down. Will their votes drive a historic outcome for Democrats?
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The rest of Georgia voters head to the polls Tuesday to select their senators in two runoff elections. Control of the U.S. Senate hangs in the balance. Republicans currently have both seats.
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Former Education Secretary John King Jr. thinks a national tutoring program would help students make up for lost learning during the pandemic. He talked with NPR about the challenges facing schools.
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McCartney has been busy in quarantine. The artist speaks about his new album, McCartney III, the quirks of writing love songs and remembering his late friends John Lennon and George Harrison.
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People being unable to gather or see the bodies of people who died of COVID-19 is having profound psychological effects that will last for years, says psychologist Christy Denckla of Harvard.
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NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with British writer Robert Harris about the legacy of John le Carré, whom he's called "one of the great post-war British novelists" and who died Saturday at age 89.
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James Ramos, a Native American who authored three new laws said, "For once, we do have someone in the legislature that understands the issues and the plight of the California Indian people."
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To celebrate the launch of NPR's 2020 Book Concierge, each All Things Considered host will share a favorite book. Mary Louise Kelly's is Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell.
