Michael King was born at the All Saints Mission outside Engcobo in the Transkei. He was schooled at St Andrews in Grahamstown. He then went to Rhodes University where he studied English and History, completing a BA (Hons) in English in 1972. After starting his teaching career at Kingswood College, he went up to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1975. While at Oxford he won the prestigious Sir Roger Newdigate Poetry Prize in 1977. His prize-winning entry was titled The Fool. He returned to Grahamstown for three years before moving to Cape Town in 1981. He taught at Westerford High School  before undertaking a Masters Degree at UCT on the short stories of Nadine Gordimer.  He stayed on at UCT in the administration until 1986, before returning to teaching. He taught English at the Diocesan College until 2012. He was Deputy Principal (under various names) from 1993 till he left. After retiring, he enrolled in the UCT Creative Writing Masters programme in 2013, and finished the course at the end of 2014. He was awarded the degree with distinction. In February 2014, he took up a position of Acting Associate Principal (Academic) at Parklands College. He retired from this position at the end of 2018.

He edited the high school writing magazine English Alive from 1982 till 1988, and put together a collection of material from the first 21 years of English Alive, which David Philip published in 1988. He has also been involved with the literary magazine New Contrast since 1990, in various capacities. He was  Editor of New Contrast from 2012 to 2015. He published privately a collection of his poems entitled The Fool and other poems in 1987. After he retired, he had self-published three novels.

He married Elizabeth Stevens in 1986, and they have two sons, Matthew (1987) and James (1989).