The four most influential young literary magazines in America, each founded within a few years of the turn of this century, are n + 1, based in Brooklyn; McSweeney’s and its sibling The Believer, both based in San Francisco; and Tin House, based in Portland, Ore. Tell me which you prefer, and I will, more or less, tell you who you are.

N + 1 is self-consciously pugnacious and intellectual, in the style of the old Partisan Review. McSweeney’s and The Believer are offbeat — reading them is like browsing in a word-drunk Etsy — and uncommonly appealing to look at. Tin House somehow resembles your beautiful ex-girlfriend who lucked her way into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is doing surprisingly well there.

Each of these journals appears either three or four times a year. Each is well worth subscribing to. Each sells a variety of branded merchandise on its website, though no little magazine anywhere can top the formidable tote bag available from n + 1, which reads simply, “I had an abortion.” Game over, in that category.

Each has a busy book-publishing arm, as well. Lately, I’ve been gravitating to the books issued by n + 1. I’m thinking especially of “Draw It With Your Eyes Closed” (actually published by Paper Monument, an n + 1 visual arts spinoff), a witty volume about teaching art. Now comes “MFA vs NYC,” edited by the gifted novelist (“The Art of Fielding”) and n + 1 editor Chad Harbach, an even better volume that asks whether fiction writing can, or should, be taught.