Hobbits is from Kentucky!
Fred Sanders, at the Scriptorium blog, relates how J.R.R. Tolkien found inspiration for his hobbits via his interaction with a classmate from Kentucky.

Solitude and Silence as Spiritual Disciplines
Just in time for our community group’s summer book study of J.P. Moreland’s The Lost Virtue of Happiness, here’s a series on the spiritual disciplines of solitude and silence by the same author.