Woorilla Magazine was founded in 1989 by a group of writers and artists who gathered at the ‘Woorilla’ homestead of Maria Millers who is still the managing editor. The magazine has grown from its first edition, produced by this dedicated group, into a magazine that reaches across Australia and beyond.

From its earliest indigenous people, the Wurundjeri, to its latest residents, the Dandenong Ranges has seduced people to its natural beauties. In modern times, writers and artists have chosen this area to live, work and find their inspiration. Some of the better known artists and writers of the past have been C J Dennis, Mrs Aeneas Gunn, Katherine Susannah Pritchard, John Morrison, Margaret and Arthur Howells, Nettie and Vance Palmer, Louis Esson, Arthur Streeton, and Tom Roberts. The Hills, as the Ranges are popularly known, continue to attract writers and artists, and it is these artists who are celebrated by Woorilla Magazine.

Although Woorilla currently publishes writers from throughout Australia and beyond, the magazine retains, and is proud of, its Dandenongs flavour.

In the 15 years of its existence, the magazine has grown and changed but its first principles have remained. These are:

• to give voice to the writers and artists of the Dandenongs
• to engender an awareness of the local heritage of writing and culture
• to foster the development of cultural tourism
• to be literary, but accessible
• to acknowledge our debt to the local indigenous culture
• to promote our history, art, music and natural environment to the rest of Australia and the world.