King holds a BFA in painting and film from Cooper Union (received 1980) and an MFA in writing from Columbia University (2000). At Cooper Union, he studied with Jim Dine, Lee Krasner, and Robert Breer, among others. He was part of the East Village art scene, then formed a company specializing in murals and trompe-l'?il painting. That company, with which King is no longer affiliated, still exists under the name Franklin Tartaglione, LLC. At Columbia, he worked with Michael Cunningham, Fenton Johnson, Richard Howard, April Bernard, Lucie Brock Broido and David Plante. The Ha-Ha, in substantially different form, was his thesis project.

King was awarded the 2006-07 John Guare Writers Fund Rome Prize Fellowship in Literature at the American Academy in Rome. He has taught cultural studies at The School of Visual Arts and writing at Baruch College and New York University.

King's life partner is the painter Franklin Tartaglione. The two have been a couple since 1975.

King’s poetry has been published in The Paris Review and Big City Lit, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

In 1998 and 1999, King was editor-in-chief of Columbia, Columbia University’s literary journal. While completing The Ha-Ha, he worked as an editor at The Little Bookroom, in New York.