Berkley/Jove/Putnam bought Judy Douglas Knauer's first novel, Conquest of the Farmer's Daughter, which they promptly changed to Ecstasy Reclaimed by Brandy LaRue. Sub-rights sold to Harlequin who published her book in Yugoslavia, Holland, Finland, Germany and Australia. She sold several articles to regional magazines: Buckeye Farm News, Countryside, and How-To Handbook. She also sold a short mystery, The Big Change, to Over My Dead Body print magazine. Her fiction entry from first thriller Bad Catholics (now under revision and titled The Devil's Heat), is on Pg. 19 of the 2005 Writers at Work Chapbook by the Chicago Chapter of the National Writers Union.

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She wrote the script “Avoiding Strangers” for the Illinois District 8 Prairie Central schools, which is acted by Junior High School students to early Grade School pupils.

While a Central Illinois journalist (1988-1995), Judy never shied from controversial news. She hiked with a reformed devil worshiper to a secluded sacrificial site; interviewed a felon while sitting on his cell bunk; had her job threatened by a City Police Chief, an embezzler's relative, and the father of a convicted pipe bomb killer. Hard news, investigative reporting, features and a column garnered 14 awards--eight from Illinois Press Association.

She continues to use controversy and justice in her current work as a fiction and memoir writer.

Judy has participated in 31 writer conferences and/or workshops, some as a panelist and/or moderator, from Omaha, to Chicago, Indianapolis, New York, New Orleans, Bloomington, IL, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Matteson, IL, St. Louis, Schaumberg, IL, Phoenix, AZ, Orlando, Boca Raton and Deerfield Beach, Florida.

Her college education includes English Composition I & II, Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation, Techniques of Crime Scene Investigation, Desktop Publishing, and International Business, all with 4.0 GPA. In October 2017, she earned a Certificate for 12 hours of Continuing Education from Northeast Wisconsin Technical College at 1st Annual Gang Conference as only writer at all-law enforcement training in Green Bay, WS.

Judy writes the Manny Shepherd P.I. series; the Carrie Romanelli Investigative Reporter series; thrillers and memoirs, as J.D. Knauer, J. Douglas Knauer or Judy Douglas Knauer.