Her articles in the Village Voice in the 1980s won the Pulitzer Prize for best feature writing, as well as two Clarion awards, the Page One award, and the Front Page award. Carpenter was awarded the 1981 Pulitzer in Feature Writing after it was revealed the original winner Janet Cooke fabricated an article.

She is author of four books: Without a Doubt (1997) (with Marcia Clark), a New York Times #1 bestseller; Missing Beauty (1988), a New York Times bestseller; Mob Girl (1992); and The Miss Stone Affair (2003).

Carpenter's articles have appeared in the following anthologies: Pulitzer Prize Feature Stories, edited by David Garlock; Profiles in Courage for our Time, edited by Caroline Kennedy; The Village Voice Anthology, edited by Geoffrey Stokes; Feature Writing for Newspapers and Magazines, edited by Edward Jay Friedlander and John Lee;and Excellence in Reporting, edited by Edward Jay Friedlander, Harry Marsh, and Mike Masterson.