Michael Livingston II is a Maryland native, and a 2011 graduate of Virginia Union University in Richmond with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.

Not satisfied with the lack of a student newspaper on his campus, he joined a group of students to launch the ZULU newsletter as an avenue for aspiring poets and writers to publish their works. Shortly afterward, the student newspaper, the VUU Informer, was back in print, and Livingston joined as a staff writer. He enjoys poetry and fiction and helped the English Department re-establish the school’s literary magazine, VUU Voices.

After graduation, Livingston accepted an unpaid internship with HBCU Buzz, a news aggregator for historically black colleges, as a freelance reporter and later became an editor. In December 2011, he landed at his hometown’s largest paper, The Washington Post as a news aide, helping to maintain daily operations of the newsroom.

He has freelanced for The Post, writing for the Local Living, Metro, and Style sections. In October 2012, he began working for the Reliable Source column on the print and Web editions of the column.