Rex Pickett (born July 9, 1952)[1] is an American novelist and filmmaker best known for his novel Sideways,[2] which was adapted into a 2004 movie of the same name directed by Alexander Payne.

He dropped out in the early 1980s and, with his then-wife, Barbara Schock, wrote and directed two independent feature films, California Without End and From Hollywood to Deadwood.

[3] In 1998 he wrote the screenplay for My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 1999.

Emboldened by front page Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter news about the Artisan greenlight, Pickett's agent at Curtis Brown went back out to publishers in a mass submission but it was again rejected.

The project was greenlit by Fox Searchlight, who gained control of it from Artisan in July 2003 and a start date announced for late September.

After more than 100 rejection letters, Pickett's new agent at Trident Media Group went back out with his still unpublished novel and ended up selling it in a fire sale to St. Martin's Press for $5,000.

In 2012 Pickett staged a play version of his novel Sideways at the Ruskin Group Theater in Santa Monica, California.