This essay takes the telephone as its subject, and in doing so responds to David Trotter’s work on interwar communication in 'Literature in the First Media Age' (2013). I focus particularly on the development of Virginia Woolf’s writing – from 'Night and Day' (1919) through 'Jacob’s Room' (1922) to 'The Years' (1937) – noting along the way the extent to which technology and technique speak to one another, sometimes to devastating effect, often at the expense of vocal clarity. Tapping into Woolf’s telephones, I argue, has a number of things to tell us about the texture of her fiction, as well as about her characters’ quality of attention and their urge to get things done at a distance.