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Mary Louise Kelly has been reporting for NPR for nearly two decades and is now cohost of All Things Considered. She has also written suspense novels, Anonymous Sources and The Bullet, and is the author of articles and essays that have appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, among numerous other publications. A Georgia native, Kelly graduated from Harvard University with degrees in government and French language and literature and completed a master's degree in European studies at the University of Cambridge in England. She created and taught a graduate course on national security and journalism at Georgetown University. In addition to her NPR work, Kelly has served as a contributing editor at the Atlantic, moderating news-maker interviews at forums from Aspen to Abu Dhabi.
Mary Louise Kelly's website
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I've never read a book that attempts to capture a year in someone's life, written in real time, as the year unfolded. Why did you want to do this?
I'm not sure I realized that was what I was doing, until I was too far in to back out. And it was terrifying once it dawned on me, because… what if it turns out to be a boring year? What if nothing interesting happens from, say, April onwards? But I was turning 50, and I'd just lost my dad, and we were all emerging from a pandemic that had rendered our lives unrecognizable. And for me the biggest change afoot was that my oldest kid was starting his senior year of high school, so I was counting the months and then the weeks remaining that we were all living under the same roof, as a family. I wanted this particular year… to stick. I wanted to be intentional about the way I navigated it, and to reckon with my choices as I made them. Both the things I've gotten wrong (my kids would confidently assure you there's enough material there to fill a book by itself) and the things I was hoping I might get right.
When you say you wanted to reckon with your choices… What choices?
Here's an example: my sons love soccer. They live for it, have lived for it since they were tiny. Now ...
Melissa has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, Readers Digest, Life, MS, Newsweek, The Wilson Quarterly, Parade, Redbook, Parenting, Huffington ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
It. Goes. So. Fast.
Try:
No Biking in the House Without a Helmet
by Melissa Fay Greene
Taylor Harris is a writer, wife, and mom of three who lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Her work has appeared in TIME, O Quarterly, the Washington Post, Longreads, The Cut, Romper, Parents, McSweeney's, and other ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
It. Goes. So. Fast.
Try:
This Boy We Made
by Taylor Harris
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