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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We are happy to have a few minutes now with All Things Considered host, Mary Louise Kelly. Some of you already know she has a recent book release, a memoir called It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs. Did you know Mary Louise is also a novelist? She has two previous books that are thrillers in addition to the work you probably know her for bringing you the news and conversations on ATC, and previously her reporting as a National Security Correspondent. Mary Louise, thanks for giving us a few minutes this early in the day. Thanks for coming on.

Mary Louise Kelly: Brian, good morning, and good morning to all of the listeners out there. This is so fun to get to be with you today. Thanks.

Brian Lehrer: Can I start here with you because when listeners meet me, they often want to know about my workflow, like how do you prepare, what happens over the course of a typical day before and after the show? I'm sure listeners would love to hear you describe a little of that for you and All Things Considered. Can you?

Mary Louise Kelly: Sure. I will say I just got off the line moments before joining you with All Things Considered team. Our day, the typical day starts with reading the headlines, trying to figure out what's going on in the world since we woke up this morning., and then we all convene at 9:30 every weekday morning and do what's called the pitch meeting, the morning meeting. It is as it sounds, people pitch ideas from what we want to do about the big newsy the headlines of the day, to fun stuff, forward-looking stuff, things we need to put in motion now so that they'll be ready next week or next month. Now it's a hybrid meeting where there's a lot of folks in the NPR newsroom around a big conference table on the third floor.

I was joining from home today because I'm working remotely today over Zoom. Today, we were focused on, for example, what we want to do about the debt ceiling standoff, who we want to talk to. We were focused on the Ukraine Green Deal and is that about to collapse tomorrow and what we want to hear about that. There were stories that are more about joy, and fun, and color, and life, and everybody's pitching.

It's funny, Brian, it's a little bit of an anachronism to think that in the crazy news cycles and the speed at which everything moves that, on any day at 9:30 in the morning, we can make a plan that will hold till 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon when we go on air, but we try. We try to because it's better to have a plan that you can rip up than to have no plan. We start planning things. Right now I've got producers and editors and a whole team which are all now starting to work the phones, book interviews.

I always frame the day as what feels like the most interesting questions out there, what do I want to know? Who could answer them? Then you start trying to chase those people and see who you can align for that night. That's how the day goes. Then it feels like a sprint through the morning, early afternoon, booking interviewers, preparing for interviews, writing the copy, straight up till we go on air at four o'clock sharp. On any given day, often at 3:59, not a single story in our two-hour broadcast is actually done. We're still editing-

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I know that one.

Mary Louise Kelly: -fact-checking, prepping all the rest. Some days are calmer than others. In a crazy way, sometimes it's the big breaking news days that are- I don't want to say the least stressful, but the least stressful because you're just focused on one thing. If there is a huge moving news story, that's what we're covering, and every interview is going to inform and feed my questions for the next.

Sometimes the board difficult days to wrestle with are the ones where there's like 18 stories to prep for because not one sole one is dominating the news. Today is shaping up to be one of those days.

Brian Lehrer: You talked about knowing when it's 3:59 as opposed to four o'clock. I have that. People I know say, "God, you obsessively know what time it is to the second." It's because of the radio work. Do you have that?

Mary Louise Kelly: Oh, totally. Our deadlines are measured in minutes and seconds, not hours and days. There are some days where I think I could make this story so much better if I had not even an extra hour, an extra five minutes to write it or prep it or whatever, but you don't. [chuckles] You go with it and you do your absolute best and weigh out what you know and you don't know and you keep going.

I sometimes get asked, "Can you deliver a talk? Can it be around 15 minutes?" I'm like, "Yes, if you want it to be 14 minutes and 59 seconds, I can nail that because that's what my day job demands."

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's right. We have the software that translates our words into minutes and seconds.

Mary Louise Kelly: Indeed.

Brian Lehrer: Each word in the main part of the title of your memoir has a period after it like four tiny sentences. It. Goes. So. Fast. What's the emotion behind the punctuation?

Mary Louise Kelly: That I wanted to really emphasize that, and without wanting to scream at you and put it in all caps. I wanted you to pause. It does go so fast. It goes so fast. This book is about my struggle, the juggle, trying to balance my work and my family and be a good mom and be a good journalist at the same time, and the trade-offs and deals that I've cut with myself over the 19 years that I have been a mom and a practicing journalist. It does go so fast.

I sat down and wrote last year in real time, last year being my oldest son's senior year in high school. When it became staggeringly apparent that my great plans and intention is to somehow figure out how to be more present and more around at home, how to add an expiration date, that I was running out of time and if I was going to make different choices, I needed to make them right now because it goes so fast.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it goes so fast. You tell many stories in the book about balancing work and parenting demands, really difficult stories like taking an unpaid leave of absence from NPR because your two-year-old hadn't started talking yet and needed more full-time attention. To the other part of your book title which was The Year of No Do-Overs was senior year in particular, the year of no do-overs more than others?

Mary Louise Kelly: The moment where all this crystallized for me, Brian, was thinking about, again my oldest son who was heading into senior year of high school and whose primary animating passion in life had always been soccer. He's always played since before he couldn't walk. He would crawl around and bat at this little nerf mini peewee ball. Fast forward and he's a teenager and he is a starting striker on his high school soccer team. Their games, which he lives for, are weekdays usually right around four o'clock. I have a conflict weekdays at four o'clock which is-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I know where you are at weekdays at four o'clock.

Mary Louise Kelly: Yes. Hosting All Things Considered is not a job that you can just slink away, cut out early one day and hope no one will notice. What that has meant is that I've always missed his games, all of them. Every year ,I would think I'll figure this out next year, next year I'll find a way to be there. But the year slipped by and 9th grade turned into 10th, turned into 11th, and I was staring down senior year. It was the revelation, I have no more do-overs, I have no more chances to make a different choice. That was a small choice that speaks for many of the bigger ones that have unfolded over these years. That was what I was trying to capture.

Brian Lehrer: Well, if it helps at all, I can tell you as a parent whose kids are past high school, that they never really go away.

Mary Louise Kelly: I don't know if that's a promise or a threat.

Brian Lehrer: No, it's a promise. I mean it completely earnestly. I don't mean they move back home, and all that goes with that. They're in your life. One thing that happens in college is frequently they're home four months a year because of the college calendar.

Mary Louise Kelly: We are gearing up for that. My son is heading home from his first year at the University of Chicago this coming weekend, and I'm already looking at his room every time I pass it and thinking I'm so, so happy he's going to be in it and also thinking oh my god, this house is about to become a total mess again, isn't it with two teenagers at home?

Brian Lehrer: Does it infuriate you that nobody seems to ask men who have children at home how do you do it all? There may be no- I'm sure there is somewhere, a similar book written by a father. Even here a quarter of the way into the 21st century, people still routinely ask women that question and not so much men.

Mary Louise Kelly: This is absolutely true. I have been aware of that. Sometimes I get this question and think, "Are you asking the male reporter next to me these same questions about who's taking care of your kids while you're on this two-week detail in Iraq, for example?"

I will say, Brian, one of the things that has surprised me putting this book into the world is I would say, a rough estimate. At least half the people I've heard from have been men who are reading this and saying thank you and-

Brian Lehrer: Oh?

Mary Louise Kelly: -pushing back or asking questions. I don't know why. I think my working hypothesis is that women talk about this stuff all the time. We're always talking about the juggle, and how to try to have it all, and the choices we make. I don't know, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I gather men do not sit around having this conversation all the time when you gather amongst yourselves.

I've heard from a number of men saying, "Thank you for opening this conversation." [laughs]

I also had a funny conversation just the other night. I was picking up my younger son from soccer practice and one of his friends on the team, so this other 17-year-old sweaty teenage boy, jock, leaving practice, walked past my car and tapped at the window, and said, "Hey, Mrs. Kelly, nice to see you. I hear your book's out and doing well. I'm really looking forward to reading it. I really think it's going to resonate for me."

I was like, "Really? [laughs] 17-year-old teenage guy, you think this is going to resonate for you?" He said, "Yes, your son has told me what it's about and that it's about trying to show up for the things that are important to us and making choices when we can't be in these multiple places at the same time, and I think that's going to resonate."

Brian Lehrer: That's sweet.

Mary Louise Kelly: I thought, Okay, there you go."

Brian Lehrer: That's great. We're almost out of time. We talk a lot these days about the changing news media environment, challenging times economically, including whole news organization shutting down, many layoffs at NPR and other news organizations, more people getting their news or what they believe to be news from random people on social media rather than actual news organizations.

In the context of all that, before you go, how do you see the role of NPR in its public service mission today, maybe even compared to when you started at the network?

Mary Louise Kelly: Well, I would absolutely agree with you. This is a painful time in our industry. NPR has just been through a really painful round of layoffs, and yet I have been heartened within our newsroom at the solidarity and kindness that people have extended to each other throughout this.

I will say in terms of our mission, one of the things that motivates me and makes me want to continue with this work that I have found has given purpose and meaning to my life is NPRs commitment to reporting. There are a lot of places to hear talking heads. There are a lot of hot takes all over social media.

I look at our network just to name one example of international correspondence, which is practically unrivaled these days for a major American news organization to have bureaus all over the world. The reason we do that is because we believe in the value of boots on the ground, first-person reporting.

These are what we're seeing. This is what we're hearing from people. We're just going to share this with you and you can make up your own mind what you want to think about it and whether you care.

We continue to do that and I see that as something that sets us apart from a lot of news organizations that are just panel after panel of talking heads and something that has even more value today than it might have years ago in terms of giving basic information about what is happening in our communities and in our world and why it matters.

Brian Lehrer: Mary Louise Kelly's new book is called It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs. Mary Louise, it's a delight. Keep it up.

Mary Louise Kelly: Thank you, Brian. It has been a pleasure.

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