This essay examines a new feminist method of creative research where the notion of correspondence can be utilised to retrieve lost histories of women artists. It explores how contemporary women artists have developed a method of casting into the past for corresponding forerunners to converse or 'collaborate' with, using examples from the 1980s (Rose Garrard) to 2022 (Cecilia Alemani’s curation, The Milk of Dreams). It suggests Virginia Woolf's notion of radical friendship between women from A Room of One's Own, might prove a useful model. The essay was commissioned by the artists group Obscure Secure (Jacqueline Utley and Hayley Field), who employ these methods of archival research. It appears in their book, Listening to Kathleen Walne, part of a project that took place in association with the Towner Art Gallery and the Estate of Kathleen Walne. Other contributors are Jennifer Higgie, Emma Roodhouse and Karen Taylor.