Connections to the authors life

I've noticed that after reading about Audrey Niffenegger and her life that she uses a lot of her interests and adds connections to her life within the novel. I read in a biography about Audrey that she enjoys punk bands and listening to them in her home town of Chicago. On page 204 and 205 of the novel The Time Traveler's Wife, Henry and Clare are having a conversation with two teenagers about what kind of music they listen to. They are naming off punk bands and one of them mentioned is one of Audrey's favourite, Patti Smith. "You have to go back to the sixties, right? You start with the Velvet Underground, in New York. And then, right over here in Detroit, you've got the MC5, and Iggy Pop and the Stooges. And then back in New York, there were The New York Dolls, and The Heartbreakers-" (Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife, 205)