Gillian Marchenko is a Christian, wife, mother, author, speaker, and advocate for individuals with special needs. She writes and speaks about stumbling faith, Down syndrome, depression, adoption, motherhood, and grace. Gillian’s work has appeared in Today’s Christian Woman, Thriving Family, MomSense Magazine, Gifted for Leadership, Connections Magazine, Chicago Parent, Story Bleed, Chicago Special Parent, EFCA Today, Four Cornered Universe, and is forthcoming at Literary Mama. She speaks to MOPS groups (Mothers of Preschoolers), helps coordinate her church’s special needs Sunday school and respite, and teaches about inclusive church with Joni and Friends Chicago.

An agented writer with WordServe Literary Agency, Gillian’s memoir about her daughter’s birth and diagnosis of Down syndrome as a missionary in Ukraine will be published by the end of 2013 with T.S. Poetry Press.

Gillian won The 2012 Ethel Herr Most Promising New Writer Award, sponsored by Kathy Ide’s Christian Editor Network at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference in Mount Hermon, California.

She lives in Chicago with her husband Sergei, and their daughters Elaina, Zoya, Polly, and Evangeline. Most Sundays, you’ll find Gillian in the back row of the church Sergei pastors, bouncing a toddler on her knee and giving the older girls the look.

Check out Gillian’s website at www.gillianmarchenko.com, find her author page on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter: GillianMarchenk.