carroll has been a contributing editor to "esquire", "outside", and "playboy" magazines. her focus is "the heart of the heart of the country". for an april 1992 issue of "esquire", she chronicled the lives of basketball groupies in a story called "love in the time of magic". in june 1994, she went to indiana and investigated why four white farm kids were thrown out of school for dressing like black artists in "the return of the white negro".