Born in the Russian Empire, she emigrated to the United States as a child, later becoming active in socialist movements in San Francisco and New York City.
While studying at Stanford University, she became friends with writer Jack London, with whom she co-authored the 1903 epistolary novel The Kempton-Wace Letters.
Strunsky was born on March 21, 1877, into a Jewish family in Babinots (now Babinovitch), in the Liozna Raion, Russian Empire (now Belarus).
She attended Stanford University from 1896 to 1898, where she formed a close friendship with writer Jack London, with whom she frequently discussed social and political issues.
Strunsky and her sister Rose, who also attended Stanford, became leading members of the turn-of-the-20th-century San Francisco intellectual scene, part of a radical group of young Californian writers and artists known as The Crowd.