David Carroll was schooled at Campbell High School (Canberra) and Epping Boys High (Sydney), and later completed a BA degree in applied mathematics and computing at the University of Technology (Sydney). This later led to him working as a computer programmer for ANSTO.

Carroll's interest in speculative fiction has seen him establish himself as a freelance writer, producing works in a variety of forms and genres. His material for roleplaying games (RPGs) includes co-writing, with Jason Vey, All Tomorrow's Zombies, a gaming book inspired by Eden Studios' All Flesh Must Be Eaten, as well as contributing to the 'Demon' and 'Hunter' games lines (part of the White Wolf series of games set in the World of Darkness), Gold Rush Games' Nanbanjin: Southern Barbarians (unreleased), and Sengoku.

In addition to his involvement with RPGs, Carroll has written numerous articles on and reviews of horror and science-fiction books, films, and comics, and conducted interviews for a variety of publications, including Bloodsongs, Severed Head, Skinned Alive, Golden Age, Plexus (university magazine), Newswit (university magazine), and two Doctor Who publications: Dark Circus (a fanzine) and Data Extract (a magazine published by the Doctor Who Club of Australia). He also contributed a regular column to Black: Australian Dark Culture Magazine, and wrote Picking the Bones (a series of short essays on Stephen King's novels) for the Stephen King Information Newsletter (SKIN). During the mid to late-1990s, Carroll produced his own zine, Burnt Toast. During that period, he met fellow RPG enthusiast Kyla Ward, and together they established the Tabula Rasa website. Carroll and Ward also contributed to the BFI Companion to Horror (edited by Kim Newman). Carroll's other career achievements include creating the Horror Atlas and Horror Reference, once hosted on The Cabinet of Dr Casey webpage.