Brooks is dyslexic and attended Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. He studied at Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. He spent a semester at the University of the Virgin Islands. He graduated from American University in Washington, D.C. in 1994.
From 2001 to 2003, Brooks was a member of the writing team at Saturday Night Live.
Brooks has been married to Playwright Michelle Kholos since 2003. They have one son, Henry Michael Brooks (born March 2005), and live in Venice, California.
In 2006, Brooks followed with World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which deals with the war between the human race and zombies. Paramount Pictures acquired the movie rights, and Brad Pitt's production company, Plan B Entertainment, produced the film. In the October 2006 issue of Fangoria Magazine, Brooks stated that he would not be writing the screenplay for the motion picture, as he felt he was not an accomplished enough Screenwriter to "do it right" (J. Michael Straczynski wrote the first version of the screenplay).
Brooks wrote the introduction for the hardcover collected edition of Dynamite Entertainment's zombie miniseries Raise the Dead, released in 2007.
In 2010, Brooks wrote the IDW comic book mini-series G.I. Joe: Hearts & Minds.
In 2011, he wrote the foreword for Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies, a 300-page fiction book written by Matt Mogk.
In 2012, he published Closure, Limited and Other Zombie Tales, featuring the story of that name from The New Dead, along with three other short stories set in the World War Z universe.
In 2013, Avatar Press released The Extinction Parade, a comic book series based on Brooks' 2011 short story.
In 2014, Broadway Books published The Harlem Hellfighters, a graphic novel which portrays a fictionalized account of the entirely African American 369th Infantry Regiment's experiences in World War I, written by Brooks and illustrated by Caanan White. Sony Pictures has purchased the rights to create a film version of the novel, with Caleeb Pinkett and James Lassiter producing on behalf of Overbrook Entertainment.
In 2016, Brooks was invited to MineCon 2016 and announced that he was working on a new novel based on Minecraft. The book, Minecraft: The Island was published in July 2017.
